ESSAYS FROM "GOOD 



WORDS" 



By HENRY ROGERS 



AUTHOR OF "THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH " 




/ LlLc/tOT 







RAH AN & CO. 

\ T DON 






■ 






LONDON : PRINTED BY W. 

AN-r 



PREFACE. 



All the following Essays, except the last, were written 
for Good Words. As five other Essays, contributed 
to the same periodical, have been already published 
in the volume containing the new edition of " Reason 
and Faith," the present volume has been made uniform 
with it in type and appearance. 

Critics have of late sometimes complained of the 
frequency of reprints from periodical literature ; and 
perhaps not unreasonably. Yet surely, it is a venial 
offence, for if any be injured, it must be the publishers 
and authors alone. The public, if it does not like 
" the wares," need not, and will not, purchase them ; 
and knowing beforehand what they are, will not be 
liable to be taken in by its own false preconceptions, 
or a pretentious advertisement. 

It is not for me to say whether the following Essays 
be intrinsically worthy of a separate republication. 



iv Preface. 

The subjects indeed are, for the most part, of great 
importance and enduring interest. Of the mode of 
treatment the reader must judge. But it is only just 
to myself to say that the whole of the Essays have 
been very carefully revised, many additions and altera- 
tions made, and no inconsiderable portions almost 
rewritten. 

One reason among others which has induced me to 
issue them in the present form, is, that I have been 
told by some of my coevals, whose eyes, like mine, are 
getting dim, that they would be glad to read them in 
a larger type. 

The last Essay, on M. Renan's " Les Apotres," 
— which I was desirous to include in this volume, as 
the former contained one on his " Vie de Jesus," 
— was written for the Fortnightly Review at the request 
of the accomplished editor, Mr. Lewes, and is here 
reprinted by the courtesy of the proprietors. 

I was in doubt whether it would be possible for me 
to prepare such an article as he would deem admis- 
sible ; but I told him that if I were permitted to write 
just as freely as I should for the Edinburgh or any other 
periodical, I could have no objection. Mr. Lewes 
frankly replied that it was his wish that I should 
do so ; that it was his earnest desire to get men of 
widely different views, especially on important points 
of theology and philosophy, to argue them in the 
Fortnightly Review as on neutral ground ; where the 



Preface. v 

pro and con might be fairly and candidly exhibited, 
and (as might be presumed) with somewhat of the 
temper and courtesy usually manifested in the personal 
intercourse of those who are contesting each other's 
opinions. It is needless to say that Mr. Lewes carried 
out the " convention " with scrupulous impartiality. 

While it would be preposterous to wish that periodi- 
cals in general should be conducted on such cosmo- 
politan principles, I must say I think it would be a 
good thing if there were one such organ in every national 
literature ; — an organ, the object of which should be, 
to give temperate expression to antagonistic views, by 
those best deemed able to expound them. It would 
be attended with, at least, these advantages : — Since 
truth is stronger than error, though it might sometimes 
be placed at a disadvantage, yet, having a fair field, 
it would on the whole, be a gainer. Those who are 
in error would have a greater chance, at least, of 
seeing the truth exhibited, and in forms least likely to 
repel them. Even for those who are in possession 
of the truth, it would be well to see an inoffensive 
exhibition of what can be said against it ; for in this 
way only can we learn adequately to defend it. It 
would also teach us to abate our own dogmatism, 
and to exercise charity towards those who differ from 
us. Lastly, and above all, writers, feeling that they 
spoke in the presence of adversaries, would for the 
most part do so with a candour, calmness, and 



vi Preface. 

moderation, which they are too apt to forget when 
they are the champions and echoes of their own 
applauding party. 

It would of course be a difficult thing to conduct 
such a periodical with judicial impartiality \ to offend 
neither in the tone of advocacy, nor in the propor- 
tions of space assigned to this or that subject; but if 
these difficulties can be fairly met, I have no doubt 
such a periodical would be of considerable advantage, 
not only to literature, but to truth. 



CONTENTS. 



I. THOUGHTS FOR THE NEW YEAR 

II. NOVEL ANTIQUITIES .. 

III. CHRISTIANITY VINDICATED FROM 
DENCIES TO PERSECUTION 



PAGE 
I 



ALLEGED TEN- 



IV. THE STORY OF JOHN HUSS .. 

V. SKETCH OF THE LATE SAMUEL FLETCHER 

VI. SOME THOUGHTS ON PROSE COMPOSITION 

VII. ON PUBLIC EXECUTIONS 

VIII. REPORT OF "A DIALOGUE ON STRIKES AND LOCK- 
OUTS " 

TX. RAILWAY ACCIDENTS AND CHIEF SECURITIES 
AGAINST THEM 

X. LES APOTRES .. .. .. 



31 

6l 

90 

133 

I 7 6 

193 
231 

276 
311 



APPENDIX 



•• 363 



I. 

THOUGHTS FOR THE NEW YEAR.* 

TT is a happy characteristic of our nature, that 
Hope is stronger than Fear ; and rarely do we see 
a more striking or comprehensive proof of this than in 
that unanimity of pleasant auguries, " the nods and 
becks and wreathed smiles," the universal shaking of 
hands and mutual felicitations, with which almost all 
nations in all ages have agreed to usher the New Year 
in. Every one seems astrologer enough to cast the 
horoscope of the young stranger, and to pronounce 
that the planetary aspects are benign ; every one is 
his own soothsayer, and the omens are always favour- 
able ! 

And yet nothing is darker than the prospect on 
which Hope gazes with such rapt eyes. It is as if 

* Though, the "Thoughts " in this Essay are for the most part 
equally applicable to every "New Year," an allusion here and 
there makes it necessary to state that they were originally written 
for 1865. 

B 



2 Thoughts for the New Year. 

travellers, having gained the summit of the Righi in a 
deep mist, which enveloped alike the fairer and the 
sterner features in that wondrous scene, should clap 
their hands, and break out into acclamations, at the 
beauty of the landscape. 

The aspect of the outward world exhibits meanwhile 
a striking contrast with this universal hilarity. This con- 
cert of happy omens takes place when, as one would 
imagine, it would be least likely. It is the midnight 
of the year, and all nature mourns in desolation ; and 
this universal chirrup of hope and joy is as if the 
song-birds began their carol in the depth of winter ; 
as if the cuckoo's note were heard in the leafless 
w r oods ; as if the gay butterfly fluttered and the cricket 
chirped amidst the dry ferns of the last autumn. 

Everything without, seems to remind us rather of 
ruin and decay, blasted hopes and dreary prospects, 
than of coming joy and gladness. More natural would 
our gratulations seem if we began the year still, as our 
forefathers once did, at the vernal equinox, when the 
bud is bursting and the young grass is springing, and 
Mother Earth is recovering from her long winter's 
trance ; or if we celebrated the New Year's festival, as 
did the Jews, in the month Nisan, when the jocund 
sun and the green earth were painting all nature in 
harmonious colouring with the vivid imagery of man's 
hopes, or typifying his various combinations of hope 
and fear by the alternate lights and shadows, the 



Thoughts for the New Year. 3 

blending tears and smiles, of a changeful April day. 
But as it is, the wind sighs mournfully through the 
leafless trees, telling of man's too speedy decay, or the 
snow wraps all nature in that shroud which seems the 
emblem of his winding-sheet : and yet from out all his 
habitations goes forth the cry of gladness : from each 
reeling steeple come the merry chimes of bells ; and 
every face smiles as every lip utters the words, " A 
Happy New Year." Doubtless it is a strong proof of 
what we began with, that " hope springs immortal in 
the human breast :" else as in other cases, nature's 
face would have waked a responsive and sympathetic 
echo in the bosom of her chosen child ; even as the 
vernal or the autumnal day surprises him, with silent 
force, into spontaneous mirth or involuntary sad- 
ness. 

Again ; what is all too actual in the present and too 
certain in the future, would, one would think, qualify 
in some degree the exuberant buoyancy of the hour. 
Not only is it certain that during the very last mo- 
ments of the Old Year, and the very first of the New, 
was the great reaper Death gathering his sheaves just 
as usual ; not only is it true that on the morning of 
this great holiday there lies in almost every street one 
or more of whom we sadly say that they count by 
years no longer, and on whose eyes has broken 
" another morn than ours ;" not only does it dawn 
upon multitudes to whom the first day of this new 



4 Thoughts for the New Year. 

year will also be their last ; -not only must it open 
upon thousands more to whom Love, as it draws the 
curtain, and anxiously gazes at the pale wan face on 
which Death has set his seal, can hardly say without 
faltering, " A Happy New Year," — too well knowing 
that before the leaves shall open, perhaps before the 
snowdrop shall peep from under its winter mantle, the 
" robin redbreast will be chirping upon their grave /' 
not only are there thousands more to whom, as the 
sun of the last year went down in clouds, so the first 
sun of the new year rises in them, and to whom the mere 
transition from one epoch to another makes no differ- 
ence ; not only is all this true, but when we consider 
further how large a fraction — no less than a fortieth 
part or so — of those who welcome the new year with 
gratulation will never see the end of it, or who begin- 
ning it in prosperity, which naturally justifies their 
hopes, will end it in adversity, which will too surely 
prove the vanity of them ; one would not unreasonably 
expect that such facts and reflections as these would 
repress somewhat of that hilarity which is apt to 
inspire us all at this season. 

It cannot be required indeed (for it would not be 
natural, and would assuredly be ungrateful) that we 
should put on sackcloth and sit in ashes, or allow our 
fears to preponderate over our hopes; nor that we 
should suspend over the heads of the guests at the 
convivial meetings which celebrate this annual festival 



Thoughts for the New Year. 5 

the sword of Damocles, — for that would take away the 
appetite altogether ; but in imagination, methinks, we 
might do well to provide ourselves with some such 
device as that of the wise Saladin, and teach ourselves 
to " Remember that we are mortal!" Standing on 
this isthmus of time between the two eternities, we 
should temper our hopes with our fears, and allow a 
sober wisdom, derived from the lessons of the past, to 
shade the brightness of the fair illusions in which we 
are apt to array the unknown future. 

Yet no sooner is the knell of the Old Year tolled 
at the last stroke of midnight, than the merry chimes 
ring out the birth of his glad successor. It is as when 
other monarchs die : " The King is dead — long live 
the King !" and all mankind (true courtiers in this 
case) hasten to " salute the rising sun." The dead 
monarch, whatever his claims to remembrance or the 
benefits of his reign, is forgotten as soon as he is 
gathered to the sepulchre of his fathers ; and the loyal 
flatterers begin, as usual, the work of adulation. 

The image which leads us to toll the knell of the 
Old Year, and greet with merry chimes the New, is, 
of course, a very obvious one ; the Old Year is no 
doubt in one sense dead and buried ; the New is 
just born, and is, and will be for 365 days and a little 
more, a living reality. Yet as everything may be 
taken by two handles (or, for that matter, by a thou- 
sand), there would be almost as much propriety if 



6 Thoughts for the New Year. 

these symbols were, not inverted perhaps, but greatly 
changed. 

Herodotus tells a story of the Trausians, a tribe of 
Thracians, who were so far from rejoicing w T hen a 
"man child was born into the world," that its kith 
and kin — including the disconsolate parents, the 
authors of this new mischief — gathered in a circle 
round the forlorn object, and howled out their 
lamentations on the hapless condition of the young 
pilgrim of life, under the vivid sense of all the ills 
he was heir to in coming into this bleak world ; while, 
for similar reasons, they celebrated the obsequies of 
a departed friend with rejoicings and triumph, as 
having escaped them. They tolled man into life, 
and rang a merry peal at his death ! Whether they 
learned these singular notions and equally singular 
customs from the miseries of their own barbarous 
condition, or from profoundly moralizing on the 
condition of human life — in other words, whether they 
were more savages or philosophers in this matter — 
may be doubted. We must, at any rate, confess that 
in these, and in some other traits of their character 
(if it be truly delineated by the shrewd old annalist), 
they were very original savages ; though it must also be 
confessed that their grim " Welcome, little stranger," 
was by no means so true to nature, nor, therefore, to 
philosophy, as that fond wish expressed in the ex- 
quisite Hindoo epigram : 



Thoughts for the New Year, 7 

" Naked on parent's knees, a new-born child 
Thou satt'st and wept, while all around thee smiled ; 
So live, that sinking to thy last long sleep, 
Thou then may'st smile, while all around thee weep :" 

when that wish is fulfilled, Solomon's paradox becomes 
true, " That the day of a man's death is better than 
the day of his birth ;" and Paul's, that however good 
to be here, it is " far better to depart." 

But though we could not, like the Trausians, cele- 
brate the obsequies of the Old Year with a merry 
peal, yet is it not too significant to toll its funeral 
knell, as if it were to be buried, cut off from all com- 
munication with us, and be henceforth nothing to 
us ? Would it not be as wise to bid it farewell, as a 
friend departing from our shores, — not dead in truth, 
nay, ?iever to die to us,- — with a strain of pensive and 
solemn music ? And if we cannot for very shame 
imitate those savages of Herodotus, and meet the 
New Year with lamentations, yet might we not with 
propriety welcome it in strains which should inter- 
mingle the sense of awe and mystery with the 
aspirations of hope and joy, as an orchestra attunes 
the minds of an audience to the unknown scenes of 
wonder which the rising curtain is to unveil ? 

The past, in truth, still lives to us, and, connected 
by the slight ligament of the present moment, is all 
that really does. The future does not live as yet. 
The past is the region, properly speaking, of fact,— 



8 Thoughts for the New Year. 

pleasing or painful, of aspect benign or frowning, 
chiefly as we ourselves have made it ; over it, imagi- 
nation has little power. As to the future, we live 
only in imagination, — "that forward delusive faculty," 
as Butler calls it, "ever obtruding beyond its sphere," 
— and the counterpart of that future it paints will 
never live in reality : it is, in truth, as much a land 
of shadows as any other in the realms of this great 
Enchanter. And even if we prefer to gaze on the 
unknown future rather than on the familiar past; 
if its very mask piques our curiosity, and leads us to 
speculate on what is behind it, it may yet be naturally 
expected that we should not be absolutely engrossed 
by it ; that, courteously greeting the New Year, as a 
stranger, of whom we at present know nothing, we 
should dwell with pensive and grateful retrospect on 
the many blessings the Old Year has brought us, 
if we have been happy in it ; or, if we have had our 
trials and sorrows, that we have been brought safely 
through them, and that at least so much of the more 
toilsome, hazardous parts of life's pilgrimage will 
have to be traced no more ; or if we have fallen into 
grievous errors, that we should take that appropriate 
moment for penitently confessing them, thanking 
God that they have not been our ruin, and resolving 
to walk more warily for the time to come : in a word, 
that we should let the present be the meeting-place of 
the past and the future, and allow the lessons of severe 



Thoughts for the New Year. 9 

experience taught us by the one, to chastise and in- 
struct the anticipations we are too ready to form of 
the other. 

Hope, genuine hope, is not symbolized by that 
mock sun, that parhelion of fancy, which promises 
unclouded brightness, but by the rainbow ; and the 
rainbow of hope, like that of the sky, is the offspring 
alike of sun and shower — of the bright lights and 
tearful clouds of experience. 

Admirable was that emblem of the two-faced Janus, 
by which the wise old Romans signified the New 
Year \ one face looking back upon the past and the 
other forward to the future. For it is only as we 
wisely exercise retrospect, that we can have any 
power of anticipation : except as that shall enlighten 
the future, it is all dark, or lighted only by the will- 
o'-the-wisps of fancy. So that if Janus had not had 
his face that looked backward, that which looked 
forward could have been properly represented only as 
blind. As an old writer observes, he who will not 
" take the past to guide him in regulating his hopes 
of the future, so far from having, like Janus, two 
heads, must rather be counted as having no head 
at all." 

So obviously natural is it, in all who have reached 
the mature age of reflection, to chequer the gay 
with the grave on this day, that one cannot be sur- 
prised to see how often our " Essayists," when they 



io Thoughts for the New Year. 

have given their readers their New Year's greetings, 
have fallen rather into a vein of pensive musing than 
of mirth ; of musing which has caught its tone and 
hues more from sober retrospect, than from joyous 
anticipation. Thus in that exquisite paper on " New 
Year's Eve," Elia says : " The elders, with whom I was 
brought up, were of a character not likely to let slip 
the sacred observance of any old institution ; and the 
ringing out of the Old Year was kept by them with 
circumstances of peculiar ceremony. In those days 
the sound of those midnight chimes, though it seemed 
to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to bring 
a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then 
scarce conceived what it meant, or thought of it as 
a reckoning that concerned me. Not childhood 
alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels 
practically that he is mortal. He knows it, indeed, 
and if need were, he could preach a homily on the 
fragility of life ; but he brings it not home to himself, 
any more than in a hot June we can appropriate to 
our imagination the freezing days of December. But 
now, shall I confess a truth ? I feel these audits but 
too powerfully ; I begin to count the probabilities of 
my duration, and to grudge at the expenditure of 
moments and shortest periods, like miser's farthings." 

And even the " Lounger," anticipating the image 
of Charles Lamb, says on a similar occasion : " As 
men advance in life, the great divisions of time may 



Thoughts for the New Year. i r 

indeed furnish matter for serious reflection ; as he who 
counts the money he has spent, naturally thinks of 
how much smaller a sum he has left behind." 

We often bewail our ignorance of the future, on 
which our experience of the past sheds so feeble a 
light; yet it is no paradox to affirm, that that igno- 
rance is the only safe condition on which Ave can en- 
counter it. It is the source of the hopes with which 
we anticipate it, and ought to suggest the wary wisdom 
with which we should enter upon it. If man could, 
by consulting some magic mirror of the old adepts, or 
some transcendental science as yet unborn, exactly 
foreknow the events of all his future life, and the 
mode and time of his death ; if he could see in un- 
erring vision the last cast of the sexton's office, and 
hear by anticipation the shovelful of dust rattle on his 
coffin, would the oracle of the all-knowing Sidrophel 
be thronged with applicants ? I fancy not ; at least 
not to ascertain their own destiny, however curious 
they might be to know the history of their neighbours. 
If, on the other hand, they flocked to the oracle only 
to know that, the world would soon wish to relapse 
into ignorance with all convenient speed ; and in any 
case, I imagine, the chief charm of existence would be 
lost to us. Men would find, like our first parents, 
that they had bought knowledge at too costly a price, 
and that ignorance in Paradise was better than science 



1 2 Thoughts for the New Year. 

outside of it. Whereas hope is now stronger than 
fear, then, not only would fear be stronger than hope, 
but hope would be quenched, and the chief stimulus 
of life quenched with it. Hope would be extinguished, 
but so would not fear ; and the soul would sink into 
utter apathy, were it not — hard alternative ! — that the 
dread of foreseen evil would keep it only too sensitive, 
while it would poison all the pleasure of the foreseen 
good. As it is, whether in adverse or prosperous 
circumstances, this ignorance (if we have learned the 
lessons of past experience aright) may minister to us 
the hope which is our solace in the one condition, and 
that distrust and caution which should accompany the 
other. 

Do we enter on the year in gloom and sadness, to 
which the external aspect of nature is only too respon- 
sive? Do we walk in the gay procession of this 
crowded holiday with the air of mutes at a funeral ? 
Are we unable to reply to the universal salutation of 
" A happy New Year," except with the looks of an 
undertaker? or do we attempt to reciprocate it in 
mumping tones which stick in our throat, and choke 
us to utter them ? Let us recollect how easy it is for 
Him, in whose hands we believe our life is, to " turn 
the shadow of death into the morning !" As we 
cannot tell what " a day may bring forth," how much 
less a year ! As the winter of nature passes away, so 
may this winter of our sorrow with it : and the 



Thoughts for the New Year. i 



o 



summer sun and the golden harvest find us in a 
prosperity of which they shall be pleasant emblems. 
And even should this prove illusion, yet if we have 
learned those lessons which a wisdom greater than 
our own would teach us by the discipline of life, then, 
even though happiness be yet longer delayed than 
during this little circle of the months, nay, delayed 
till we shall reckon by months no more, we shall 
enjoy a sunshine of the soul, however dark the scene 
without, of which we cannot be robbed, and which 
will make even this year one of genuine prosperity. 

And not less instructively does this ignorance of 
the future speak to those (though less docile to the 
teaching than the children of sorrow) who enter on 
the year in great prosperity. That ignorance rebukes, 
if anything but experience can, the presumption of 
anticipating the continuance or the constancy of so 
fickle a thing. To teach man humility, to " hide 
pride " from him — a lesson which it is always hard to 
learn, but which is never so hard as in the days of 
prosperity — is far too precious an object in God's 
estimate, not to make it well worth while to enforce 
it, if need be, at so slight a cost as the ruin of our 
temporal prosperity; at least, such abatements or 
fluctuations in it as shall convince us of its instability. 
Man's tendency, indeed, in all states, is to believe in 
that law of " continuance," as Bishop Butler says, 
which suggests that things will be as they are, unless 



1 4 Thoughts for the New Year. 

we have the most palpable proofs to the contrary. 
But the tendency is never so strong as when it is very 
agreeable to a man to believe that the state of things 
will be permanent ; that he has built an eyrie on the 
rock, to which the spoiler cannot climb ; an " abiding 
city" where he can take up his rest. A uniform 
prosperity — more than anything else — tends to en- 
gender or foster those dispositions which are incon- 
sistent with either the true knowledge of ourselves, or 
our due subjection to God. If pride, hardness of 
heart, contempt of others not so happy as ourselves, 
or scant sympathy with them, be not the effect, (and 
they too often are), inordinate love and misestimate 
of the present, and gradual oblivion of the future, 
except to presume that it will be like the present, take 
too ready possession of the soul. There are, accord- 
ingly, few who can so enjoy long-continued prosperity 
as not to be sensibly the worse for it. A few may be 
observed, indeed, of two opposite classes, who enjoy 
it to the last : the one, those who seem past learning 
the lessons of adversity, and who are allowed to 
" spread as a green bay tree ;" and the other, those 
who, being " taught of God," have learned them so 
well, are so skilled to use the world without abusing 
it, and so daily mindful by whose donation all blessings 
are given, and by what tenure of homage to the 
Supreme Lord they are alone held, that they do not 
seem in any appreciable degree injured by them. 



Thoughts for the New Year. 15 

These, God seems to permit to walk through life in 
almost unclouded sunshine ; not, indeed, without some 
trials, yet with few, and none of them what we should 
call great and signal reverses, — with little experience 
of the " ups and downs of life," as people say. But 
there are few of us who do not need, and who do not 
get, the lessons which adversity must teach us • and 
of the generality it may be said, they are never more 
in danger than when they have been long prosperous. 
The ancients well understood the connection between 
signal prosperity and some coming reverses, though 
they accounted for the fact which experience taught 
them, by an erring philosophy. One of the best 
known and most instructive stories of Herodotus 
teaches us how deep was the heathens' conviction of 
the fact, and how insufficiently heathen speculation 
reasoned upon it. It was, it seems, the divine " envy," 
cj>66vos, which made the gods grudge the continued or 
exuberant prosperity of poor mortals • and Nemesis, 
therefore, never failed, in due time, to lay the proud 
structure in the dust, or send the cankerworm to the 
root of the fair tree. The historian tells us that 
Amasis, king of Egypt, had a dear friend in Polycrates, 
prince of Samos \ but the latter was so happy, that his 
friend could not help, in accordance with the theory 
just mentioned, regarding him as the most miserable 
of mortals, and plainly marked out for the speedy 
bolts of the divine Nemesis. Amasis exhorted him 



1 6 Thoughts for the New Year. 

therefore (if so be he might render the gods propitious 
by making himself miserable, instead of waiting to let 
them make him still more so), to disarm, by antici- 
pating, their anger; and to essay this by sacrificing 
the thing he most valued. Polycrates, impressed by 
the conspicuous wisdom of this advice, and this 
reasonable view of the divine government, made 
choice of a costly ring which he highly valued, 
and cast it into the sea. Strange to say, it was 
swallowed by a fish ; the fish was caught by a fisher- 
man, and was sent as a present to Polycrates, whose 
cook found in its maw the ring the prince had in- 
tended as his fiiaculuin, and restored it to its owner ; 
whereupon King Amasis renounced his friendship 
utterly, as one so fatally prosperous that even what he 
threw away came back to him ; who, therefore, must 
be predestined to be made an example of terrible 
reverses ; and who, as he could not fail to involve his 
friends in his ruin, ought to be carefully shunned, as 
rats run from a falling house. And the event, accord- 
ing to Herodotus, showed the justice of the fears of 
Amasis, and also his singular discretion ! 

Far different, happily, are a Christian's views of 
Him who cannot grudge any of His own gifts, seeing 
that they are " without repentance," and that from 
Him all receive "life, and breath, and all things." 
Nevertheless, long-continued prosperity is in various 
ways so inconsistent with man's highest good, that 



Thoughts for the New Year, 17 

it is as nearly certain that it will have (because it 
will need) the correctives of adversity, as if, in truth, 
envy of mortal happiness, and not the desire to 
endow us at last with something better, were the 
genuine cause of it. 

But most effectually shall we be prepared for the 
future, if, in implicit reliance upon a wisdom which 
sees the future for us and has provided for it, we 
can learn the lessons our Saviour would teach us ; 
and trusting in Him who " feeds the fowls of the 
air, and clothes the lilies of the field," will take no 
excessive self-vexing care — so the word means — for 
the morrow. " Take no thought," says our version • 
and as it now stands, the text is apt to suggest a 
meaning which it was not originally designed to 
convey. "Take no thought" did not enjoin absolute 
thoughtlessness about the morrow, or indifference to 
what prudence tells us it will probably "bring forth," 
or indolence in discharging what prudence tells us 
is our duty in reference to it, but the absence of 
all excessive, anxious thought. This is the force 
of the Greek word fjuipifiva, and our English word 
■' thought," when the version was made, suggested a 
parallel meaning. The meaning of this word is well 
illustrated by Archbishop Trench, in his little work on 
the "Authorised Version of the New Testament,"' 
in which he cites some striking passages from our 
older writers in confirmation of his criticism. 

c 



1 8 Thoughts for the New Year. 

The examples by which our Lord illustrates his 
maxim, ought to have prevented the hypercriticism 
to which it has been subjected. It is with regard 
to what we cannot do, not what we can, that he 
cautions us not to expend any superfluous and un- 
profitable care, as by " taking thought" to add to 
our stature (or our life, as others translate the word 
rjXLKia); parallel to which would be the " taking 
thought," in order to act as if we could certainly 
foresee the future, and tell by anxious excogitation 
what "the morrow would bring forth." 

Even M. Renan is not insensible to the beauty of 
these precepts; though, as is his wont through his 
singular book — full of treacherous praise and laudatory 
libel, where "the voice is the voice of Jacob, but 
the hands are the hands of Esau," or rather where 
the "Hail Master" accompanies the betraying kiss — 
he finds out that our Saviour may have gone too far, 
and enunciated maxims which, however proper for his 
little Galilean flock (living a sort of Arcadian life 
which M. Renan has invented for them, but to which 
we find nothing parallel in the Evangelic history), are 
quite inapplicable to the rest of the world ! And yet, 
if all excessive care about the future be absurd and 
unprofitable, — if as is too plain it poisons life, and if, 
as is equally plain, mankind in all ages and nations 
are but too prone to it, — the maxims have a world- 
wide application. 



Thoughts for the New Year. 19 

And if we act in the spirit of Christ's maxims ; 
if we have a firm faith in the all-embracing and 
paternal government of our Heavenly Father; then, 
though we know nothing of the future, except that 
we are ignorant of it; though we know nothing of 
the great public events with which the coming year 
is too surely fraught; though we only know that it 
opens with the spectacle of one hemisphere in the 
agonies of the most devastating strife which the world 
has ever seen,'"" and Europe probably drifting into 
gigantic revolutions in the attempt to untie the most 
complicated knot that ever tried the ringers of 
diplomacy, or invited the Gordian shears of war to 
cut it;t though we know nothing of the sudden 
events which will bring calamity or absolute destruc- 
tion, at one fell swoop, to a sufficient number to 
excite public attention and sympathy, and fill, for 
a few days, the columns of the newspapers ; though 
we know only that it will bring its usual complement 
of so-called casualties, and which are truly so to us 
— which, like the Sheffield inundation, or the Erith 
explosion, or the Calcutta hurricane of the past year, 
will fall we know not where or when; though we 
know nothing of the possible droughts or inunda- 
tions, wrecks or pestilence, fires or floods, commer- 

* The American War. 

f The Schleswig-Holstein question, then (November, 1864) 
in its last phases before the war, which has had such tremendous 
results for Europe. 



20 Thoughts for the New Year. 

cial embarrassments or manufacturing distress, which 
may strew the course of the year with havoc ; though 
we are still less able to guess at the casualties which 
will befall individuals ; in how many forms sickness, 
or death, or penury lie in wait for us ; from what 
ambush the shaft may come which is to smite us 
to the dust, or those whom we love ; or from what 
spark the fire shall be kindled which is to set the 
crumbling structure of our earthly happiness in a 
blaze; — yet if we firmly believe that "all things shall 
work together for good to them who love God," 
resign ourselves with an unfaltering faith to His 
government, and comply with His method of disci- 
pline, w r e may each add, as the apostle did, in a more 
certain foresight of corning evils than we can have, 
" None of these things move me." 

For in that case enough is known of the certain 
issues, though nothing be known of the events, of 
the year, to inspire us, not indeed with thoughtless 
mirth, yet with well-founded hope and sober joy. 
The retrospect of the past ought to confirm the same 
truth, for it not only teaches gratitude for the many 
blessings enjoyed, or still possessed ; but gives us 
a guarantee for the future, and may assure us that 
if we but act our part with faith, courage, and forti- 
tude, "Goodness and Mercy," as they have "followed 
us all the days of our life," will accompany us " even 
unto the end." And thus, to that inscrutable future, 



Thoughts for the New Year. 21 

veiled as it is to us, we may with utmost confidence 
commit ourselves. In all the circuitous tracks through 
the unknown desert, the " pillar of cloud by day, 
and of fire by night," will not fail to make a path 
for us ; there is nothing that can possibly happen 
to us, which the subtle alchemy of Divine Love, 
able to bring light out of darkness, and joy out 
of sorrow, cannot turn into profit or instruction — 
into correctives of our follies, or corroboratives of our 
virtue. 

But let the uncertainties of the year be what they 
may, one thing at least is certain; — that though we 
cannot control, or even foresee, the events which 
may fill us with rapture or rack us with anguish, 
before the first day of a New Year shall come round 
again, we may, if we please, absolutely determine 
its character to us, in the only sense in which it 
is important that it should be determined ; or in 
which it, or any similar portion of time, is or can 
be of any significance to us at all : that is, by accept- 
ing the events, whatever they be, that may befall 
us, in the plenary belief that they are the dispensa- 
tions of supreme Wisdom and Love, and in the spirit 
of resignation and submission to the Divine Will; 
looking sharply all the while to detect the lessons 
which they are severally designed and adapted to 
teach us, and endeavouring to apply them ; to find 
out what are the weak points of character which 



22 Thoughts for the New Year. 

require strengthening, and what the " easily besetting 
infirmities " which require correcting : and thus by 
conscious effort (not as too often by involuntary, 
perhaps sullen, acquiescence) becoming " workers 
together " with the designs of God. Thus possessing 
our souls in patience, striving to turn the external 
events of life into the instruments of self-discipline, 
and considering this scene of our existence as but 
a means to an end, then, however joyless the scene 
without, nay, even though the whole year should 
be like its first day to us — be born, and live, and 
die in mid-winter — there will be perpetual summer 
within. However fluctuating and unstable may be 
the element by which the bark which carries our 
earthly fortunes is tossed, it will but roll us onward 
towards the eternal haven. However crumbling the 
edifices which our eager hopes and feeble hands 
may build, the solid fabric of the "eternal building" 
shall be joyfully going on ; — that character, on which 
immortality is to be impressed, and w T hich shall 
endure, not by precarious outward supports of im- 
munity from trial or temptation, but by the equilibrium 
of internal forces ; secure in any world, and capable 
of the unsinning enjoyment of the best ; that character, 
which when annealed by discipline and trial will, 
for that very reason, be taken to a world where 
they will be no longer needed ; where virtue, become 
proof against temptation, shall be liberated from it 



Thoughts for the New Year, 23 

for ever; and, confirmed in all goodness, may be 
safely trusted with its own felicity: for "the scaffolds 
may well be taken down," as John Howe says, "when 
the eternal building is finished." 

And if this be the issue, the time will come when 
the events of the year, or of any year, (however 
momentous they may now seem to us), will seem, 
except so far as they have a bearing on that, " less 
than the dust of the balance." And in this light, 
apparently, the great Ruler regards all such events 
now: giving us, in our course of moral probation, 
as the wise physician gives his patient, cordials or 
anodynes, when they may be needed, but not sparing 
to cut deep or use the actual cautery, if the life 
depend on it. 

One of the most striking portions of the "Analogy" 
is the fifth Chapter of the first Part, where Butler so 
well applies the familiar fact, that each successive 
stage of life not only prepares the way for the next, 
but seems mainly designed for that purpose. I have 
often thought he might have gone further, and thus 
derived some striking additional confirmations of the 
conclusion of his first chapter respecting a " Future 
Life." For not only is each successive stage prepara- 
tory to the next, but seems in many respects so purely 
provisional, that a great part of us — not of our material 
merely, but our immaterial structure — appears to 
perish, and slough away (so to speak; when the end 



24 Thoughts for the New Year. 

is attained ; as though it had no other purpose than 
that of a temporary apparatus for developing a future 
stage of our life. Thus there seems a constant ten- 
dency, up to the very end of life, to drop some part 
of the provisional man ; to deposit some of the very 
elements of our being. Our sensations grow less 
vivid, long before our bodily powers in general decay. 
Our passive emotions, as Butler remarks, constantly 
weaken by repetition, as if they were designed only as 
a nucleus on which the practical habits, which strengtlmi 
by that same repetition, might crystallise. Our appe- 
tites in like manner, if only indulged (as nature 
designed) in moderation, grow less eager and ex- 
orbitant, and at length almost vanish ; while the 
higher faculties then, and then only, reach their full 
vigour when these have passed it, — often leaving the 
man in the happy condition of the aged Cephalus in 
Plato's Republic, who declares exemption from the 
torments of appetite and passion, a full compensation 
for the loss of their pleasures. Nor is it any answer 
to say that these decay only as the body decays, for 
this is but to acknowledge the fact in question ; nor 
is it always true, for they often give way before loftier 
and more energetic passions, and are absorbed by 
them — more especially by the nobler forms of ambi- 
tion. The pleasures, sports, and pastimes of child- 
hood, though necessary to develop the boy into the 
man, and rapturously enjoyed without at all thinking 



Thoughts for the New Year. 25 

of their ulterior end, all seem so strange to the youth 
of one-and-twenty, that he wonders at the intensity of 
feeling they once awakened. The man of middle life 
in a similar manner wonders at the shadows which he 
chased so eagerly in his youth ■ and though, like the 
" childish things " he has " long put away," they have 
done their work upon him, left indelible traces, for 
good or evil, on his mental history, and, if he has been 
virtuous, have happily developed habits never destined 
to perish, he, himself, can hardly help blushing at the 
escapades of folly into which imagination sometimes 
led him in the heyday of passion ; is ashamed to look 
at the love-letters he wrote, and regards them much as 
the freaks of Orlando Innamorato, or his imitator, 
Don Quixote, when they engraved on the trees of the 
forest the names and perfections of their mistresses ! 
Thus, not only is each stage of life a preparation for 
'the next, but in each some part of the machinery of 
our nature is dispensed with and thrown aside, or re- 
appears under totally altered conditions. It is seen 
to be temporary, like the system of circulation provided 
for the unborn infant, or the envelope that protects 
the bud, or the case which incloses the chrysalis. 
Are all these transformations — far more wonderful 
than that which changes the aurelia into the winged 
butterfly — for nothing ? Rather, may we not conclude, 
that if man has conscientiously adapted himself to 
the successive conditions of his moral growth and 



26 Thoughts for the New Year. 

discipline, his nature, defecated from the last traces 
of this in many respects infantile and provisional state, 
and retaining only what was designed to be imperish- 
able, shall be endowed with new and higher faculties, 
be equipped with new vehicles for their exercise, and 
rejoice in the manhood as well as the " liberty " of 
the " children of God?" May we not conclude that 
these successive abscissions from the original elements 
of our nature are but like the chips of marble which 
lie at the sculptor's feet when he is giving the last 
touches to some immortal statue ? Though to a 
novice in the art, his chisel may seem to cut away 
portions of the very statue itself, it is at last seen that 
it was but to develop more perfectly the beauty of 
his ideal. 

For those who resolve to pass the coming year in 
the way certain to determine its complexion as they 
would at last really have it, and make it a pleasant 
retrospect, it might be well to write a diary beforehand ': 
a diary not of how they have spent the days that are 
past, but of how they intend to spend at least a goodly 
portion of the days that are to come ; to mark off 
some auspicious "red-letter days" in their calendar 
on which some noble purposes shall be fulfilled, or 
which some signal acts of charity, or benevolence, or 
self-sacrifice shall make for ever memorable. The 
diaries which record the past for the avowed purpose 
of self-improvement are seldom of much use. They 



Thoughts for the New Year. 2 7 

consist of doleful entries of opportunities lost, and long 
lamentations that more was not made of them • while 
the real feelings are seldom put down with unsophisti- 
cated honesty. Vices and faults are never faithfully 
registered. We never find in a diary a frank avowal : 
— " This day I told a falsehood ; this day I got 
drunk ; this day I cheated a customer ; this day I 
pocketed or gave a bribe; this day I slandered a 
neighbour ; this day I took a cowardly revenge." 
The very confessions are all of failings such as " lean 
to virtue's side." Diaries, in short, are often nothing 
better than huge scholia of egotism or paraphrases of 
hypocrisy. But a diary inscribed beforehand with 
things to be done, which deliberate judgment and 
noble feeling approved, and with a firm resolution 
that they shall be done, would, even if resolution 
failed, prove, though a mournful, yet a very profitable 
study at the year's end ; and if it had been kept, more 
pleasant than a novel and more instructive than a 
sermon. And if we all made our first entry something 
of this kind : " Resolved on waking on New Year's 
Day to scour out of my heart, and as far as possible from 
my memory, all unkindness, anger, and malice which 
the last year left there, and that I will not rise from 
my knees till I can, without cursing myself by impli- 
cation, repeat the sixth clause of the Lord's Prayer, 
' Forgive me, as I forgive,' " I do not think we should 
have done amiss. 



28 Thoughts for the New Year. 

Should it strike the reader that this paper is for the 
most part more grave than generally befits the " fes- 
tivity of the season," he will perhaps excuse it when 
he recollects that, this year,'" New Year's Day falls 
on Sunday ; and that it is proper, while welcoming 
the birthday of this new " child of time," to give 
some thoughts to that day which is commemorative of 
events that shall be significant to us when "time shall 
be no more." 

Men sometimes like, as Fuller says, to have some 
notable epoch from which to date their reformation. 
What day can be better than this double celebration ? 
Yet if the work be not begun to-day, consider, 
Reader, that writer's arguments for beginning it on any. 
For that day, as this quaint old author says, though it 
be the obscurest in the calendar, shall to us be for 
ever memorable : " I do discover a fallacy," says he, 
" whereby I have long deceived myself, which is this : 
I have desired to begin my amendment from my 
birthday, or from the first day of the year, or from 
some eminent festival, that so my repentance might 
bear some remarkable date. But when those days 
were come, I have adjourned my amendment to some 
other time. Thus, whilst I could not agree with 
myself when to start, I have almost lost the running 
of the race. I am resolved thus to befool myself no 
longer. I see no day like to * to-day ;' the instant 
* 1865. 



Thoughts for the New Year. 29 

time is always the fittest time. . . . Grant, therefore, 
that ' to-day I may hear Thy voice. ' " 

To conclude : one warning, one legacy of wisdom, 
the Old Year would bequeath to us, if he had a voice 
to utter it, for it is one of the analogies with which 
the natural world everywhere whispers to us moral 
wisdom. And if we might for a moment personify 
the dying year in his last days, we should picture 
him a little shrivelled old man — shrivelled as one of 
his grandsire's winter pippins — piping in the shrill 
treble of extreme age, and uttering an experience 
strongly resembling that of human life. " Listen to 
me, mortals !" he might say, with the same emphasis 
with which the old, wise by experience, say the like 
to the young, who will never be wise without it : 
" Listen to me, ye mortals ! for I also am of the race 
of the ephemerals. I had my sturdy youth, when 
it seemed that my life would never end ; and I dug, 
and ploughed, and planted, and enjoyed my jocund 
prime and my golden summer ; and I decked myself 
in the garlands of May, and reaped the yellow har- 
vest, and gathered the purple vintage of autumn ; 
but scarcely had I attained the object of my desires, 
and secured the plenty for which I laboured, than I 
found the shadows lengthening, and the days short- 
ening, and my breath growing short with them, and 
decrepitude coming upon me, and the days at hand 
of which I said, ' I have no pleasure in them.' I 



3 



o Thoughts for the New Year. 



have laid up riches and know not who shall gather 
them • have planted trees whose fruit other years must 
eat, and stored the vintage of which other years must 
drink." 



3i 



II. 

NOVEL ANTIQUITIES. 

T HAD been reading with much interest some details 
of the recent proceedings of the Palestine Explora- 
tion Society, as well as an account of the learned labours 
of M. Deutsch on that curious Samaritan Epigraph, 
(containing the Decalogue), which was found some 
years ago, stuck topsy-turvy in the minaret of a 
Turkish mosque. On the same evening I happened 
to glance (after an interval of many years) into that 
curious article in Michaelis' " Laws of Moses " (No. 
LXIX.), in which the author, indulging in what many 
would call a waking dream (albeit he was by no 
means given to dreaming), speculates on the proba- 
bility of our one day finding " the great stones " in- 
scribed with the Law, or portions of it, which Moses 
commanded the Israelites to set up on Mount Ebal, 
and which Joshua tells us were set up in obedience to 
that command. 

This chance medley of various yet not unconnected 



J 



2 Novel Antiquities. 



reading, suggested to me a dream, in which the day- 
dream of Michaelis seemed to be fulfilled \ and which, 
as perhaps it may not be altogether destitute of 
instruction and entertainment, I will venture to con- 
fide to the reader. But a word or two first on the 
waking dream of Michaelis. Without entering into 
the many controversies as to the precise meaning of 
the injunctions detailed in Deuteronomy,'"* and without 
deciding whether it was the whole Law, or part of it, 
or the Decalogue only, that was to be inscribed upon 
" those great stones " (though Kennicott and my 
dream both agree that it was the Decalogue only), 
suffice it to say that Michaelis supposes the letters to 
have been cut deep, and then covered as commanded, 
with a thick coating of lime ; and that having been 
thus preserved, they may be hereafter discovered. 
The passage is so curious, that it may be worth while 
to cite it. 

"Let us only figure to ourselves," says he, "what 
must have happened to these Memorials amidst the 
successive devastations of the country in which they 
were erected. The lime would gradually become 
irregularly covered with moss and earth ; and now, 
perhaps, the stones, by the soil increasing around and 
over them, may resemble a little mound ; and were 
they accidentally disclosed to our view, and the lime 
cleared away, all that was inscribed on them 3500 
* Chap, xxvii. 1 — 8. 



Novel A ntiquities* 3 3 

years ago would at once become visible. Probably, 
however, this discovery (highly desirable though it 
would be both to literature and religion), being in the 
present state of things, and particularly of the Mosaic 
Law, now so long abrogated, not indispensably 
necessary, is reserved for some future age of the world. 
What Moses commanded, merely as an act of legisla- 
tive prudence, and for the sake of his laws, as laws, 
God, who sent him, may have destined to answer 
likewise another purpose ; and may choose to bring 
those stones to light at a time when the laws of Moses 
are no longer of any authority in any community 
whatever. Thus much is certain, that nowhere in 
the Bible is any mention made of the discovery ot 
these stones, nor indeed any further notice taken of 
them than in Joshua viii. 30 — 35, where their erection 
is described ; so that we may hope they will yet be 
one day discovered." 

To me it seemed, as I read this passage, at least as 
probable, that the author's dream of the discovery of 
these memorials might be fulfilled, as that they would 
produce, if discovered, any notable effects upon 
those who had managed to elude all other evidence of 
the truth of the Sacred Records. But however that 
may be, no sooner were my eyes closed in sleep, than, 
methought, this wonderful discovery had been actually 
made by the Palestine Exploration Society, on the 
lower slopes of Mount Ebal, in the course of some 



3 4 Novel A ntiquities. 

excavations in the neighbourhood of Nablous, the 
ancient Sichem. The locality corresponded with the 
directions of Moses as to the erection of these tablets. 
At first, indeed, the intelligence came in the enig- 
matical form which telegrams from the East so often 
assume ; the message was a good deal like some of 
those recently transmitted from India, in which one 
might fancy that a native at the other end of the wire 
was making experiments whether the telegraph would 
not convert his broken English into something intelli- 
gible by the time it reached us. The message, in 
fact, set all the wits at work to decipher the meaning, 
and failing that, furnished them with numberless jests 
on its absurdity. It ran thus : — " Palestine explora- 
tions — great discovery — Mount Babel — Mosaic Dia- 
logues — Laws of Moses and Michael." People asked 
very naturally what could be the meaning of it ? They 
wanted to know where " Mount Babel " was. Some 
answered, it was very evident that that at all events 
should be known to the telegraph, since it spoke its 
original dialects in all their confusion. With regard 
to the " Mosaic " again, antiquaries sagely surmised 
that some curious specimens of Roman tesselation 
might have been found ; but what " Mosaic Dialogues" 
could mean no man dared even to conjecture. Others 
imagined, from the mention of " Moses and Michael," 
that our savans might have found some ancient 
representation of the quarrel between " Michael and 



Novel A ntiqiiities. 3 5 

the Devil," touching " the body of Mos.es ;" and 
amused themselves with some sarcastic observations 
on the extravagance of learned enthusiasm, in deem- 
ing some trumpery pictorial or sculptured symbols of 
an old myth, worthy of being trumpeted to the world 
asa" Great Discovery."' 

In short, no one had the most distant idea of what 
was coming ; for the modern hieroglyphics of the tele- 
graph can be quite as dark as those of ancient Egypt. 
They piqued curiosity, however, nearly as much, and 
there was a good deal of impatience to know what was 
really meant. Such are the usual conditions under 
which great discoveries are heralded. First come 
indistinct mutterings and whispers which excite 
curiosity, and in part exhaust it, before the truth gets 
to us. 

But after a great deal of persiflage occasioned by 
the unlucky telegram, authentic intelligence at length 
arrived, and assured us of nothing less than that 
the memorable discovery, adverted to 2,% possible in the 
above-cited passage from Michaelis, had been actually 
made ; and that the telegram, properly corrected. 
meant — " Palestine Exploration Expedition — Mount 
Ebal — great discovery of the Mosaic Decalogue — see 
Laws of Moses by Michaelis.' 3 Letters from the 
agents of the Society gave an account of the circum- 
stances which had led to the discovery, and again 
inflamed curiosity and expectation to the utmost. 



3 6 Novel A ntiquities. 

Millions were in raptures at the intelligence, and 
seemed to think that scepticism would no longer have 
a leg to stand upon. They thought with Michaelis 
that these " Sermons on Stones " would prove a most 
opportune reinforcement of a decaying faith, and 
mightily sustain the evidence for the truth and authen- 
ticity of the Mosaic records. Even I, in spite of long 
and deep conviction, that moral evidence is, after all, 
principally strong or weak as the human mind chooses 
to make it, and that though the sun may shine ever 
so clearly, man can always make it day or night just 
as he pleases, by simply opening or shutting his eyes ; 
in spite, I say, of long and deep conviction, that 
evidence is adjusted to our state as one of moral 
probation, and will never be found such as to' over- 
bear our judgment or compel our assent, or put it 
beyond the power of ingenious perverseness plausibly 
to evade it ; even I, too, could not help falling into 
the common delusion. In all cases, men are apt 
vastly to over-estimate the effect of a novel and seem- 
ingly cogent piece of evidence, and to under-estimate 
the resources of wayward ingenuity in destroying or 
neutralizing it. They feel as many a suitor in a court 
of justice, who asks how it is possible for their adver- 
sary to "get over " this or that fact of their case ? But 
I soon found (as he often does, to his cost) that 
nothing is more easy, and that " where there is a will 
there is a way." Almost from the very moment the 



Novel A ntiquities. 3 7 

discovery was intelligibly announced to us, it was 
evident that multitudes, in virtue of their general 
opinions one way or other, had come to a foregone 
conclusion, and argued for or against the genuineness 
of the tablets with the utmost zeal. It was in vain 
that the wise and moderate, whether believers or 
sceptics, begged these furious partisans to have a 
little patience. It was in vain they were reminded that 
some members of the Expedition had expressly pro- 
mised to bring home portions, or perhaps the whole, 
of the venerable relics with them. It was of little 
use ; controversy went on ; nay, the point was dog- 
matically settled by thousands who not only had no 
manner of data whereon to form a judgment, and 
before it was possible they should have any ; but who, 
if they had had them all, would have been utterly 
incompetent to estimate them. Various hypotheses 
were formed to account for the " blind enthusiasm" 
(so some called it) which had led the explorers 
astray, or for the impudent cheat (as others said) 
which they had attempted to practise on the world. 

Many declared that sooner than credit anything 
so extremely absurd, they could readily believe that 
the learned members of the Society had either been 
imposed upon, or had become the dupes of their 
own zealous antiquarianism ; that they had either 
been cheated by others or had cheated themselves : 
but not a few were disposed to take the extreme 



3 8 Novel A ntiquities. 

view just hinted at, and said, that sooner than credit 
the thing, they could believe that the explorers were 
perpetrating a " pious fraud," and joining in a foul 
conspiracy in defence of an exploded fable ; that if 
they had found the " Decalogue of Moses," it was 
not before they wanted it, and that it was to be 
hoped they would profit by the command which 
forbids us to "bear false witness." I must do the 
world the justice, however, to say that these were 
a minority; it was generally admitted that people 
would be slow to believe such a charge against men 
whose names and known characters seemed to be 
an unanswerable reply to any such imputation. But 
this did not silence the advocates of the first theory, 
who said, that it was by no means improbable that 
our savdns might have been deceived by others, or 
might have deceived themselves. It was hard to 
say what high-wrought "enthusiasm" and "subjective" 
causes might do : that they might have mistaken, 
and probably had, some mis-shapen stones with some 
undecipherable inscriptions upon them, for what their 
heated fancy had suggested \ that when some one 
among them had once lighted on such a conjecture, 
it was easy to imagine all the rest following the 
antiquarian bellwether. As M. Renan said, in re- 
ference to Mary Magdalen and the resurrection— 
"When one had seen, there was no merit" (and no 
wonder) " in others seeing ;" so it might be here. Some 



Novel A ntiquities. 3 9 

of these gentlemen, indeed, asked with exquisite 
?idivete, "whether, since M. Renan had proved that 
the doctrine of the resurrection had arisen out of 
strange ' subjective' illusions on the part of the 
disciples (who had on many different occasions, 
collectively and simultaneously lost their wits, and 
misinterpreted the most ordinary facts into super- 
natural phenomena), the gentlemen of the Expedition 
might not have been in like manner their own dupes ?" 
To this a good man replied, that if M. Renan's 
theory was true, and the disciples, separately and 
together, had, time after time, simultaneously gone 
mad, he really knew no reason why the exploring 
party might not have gone mad too. "I quite 
admit," said he, "that the one wonder would be 
no greater than the other. In the meantime, as I 
believe M. Renan's hypothesis, as well as that of 
Paulus of Heidelburg (which is very like it), merely 
prove the hallucination of the authors, and not of 
the apostles, I am no more willing to admit the 
one supposition than the other. Besides," said he, 
"if the very inscribed stones be really forthcoming, 
it would be very hard to imagine that these could 
be 'subjective' phenomena." "Ay," said the sceptics 
incredulously, " if they be forthcoming. But what 
proof have we that they will be; or if they are, 
that they have the legible characters upon them these 
folks profess to read there ? or any characters at all 



4-0 Novel Antiquities. 

that are not as hard to be deciphered as the cuneiform 
writing of Assyria, or the hieroglyphics of Egypt ?" 

Finally, however, it was agreed by most people 
that it was of no use to " fight in the dark;" that 
we must wait the arrival of the explorers themselves, 
with, as they promised, the very " slabs." If they 
brought these, and they really bore, not illegible 
hieroglyphics, but plain orthodox Hebrew, it was 
agreed that the theory of " simultaneous hallucina- 
tion " engendered of antiquarian enthusiasm would 
hardly apply. Everybody thought that blocks of 
stone were far too solid and massive to be " subjective 
phenomena;" and that if " simultaneous enthusiasm " 
had made the explorers read the same illegible or 
enigmatical characters the same way (though itself 
a very unaccountable piece of business), still their 
blunders would be corrected by other eyes. But 
it was also agreed that if all the world thought 
the inscriptions as legible as they had done, it would 
be hardly possible to get all the world to believe 
itself mad too. 

And so methought the whole thing remained by 
general consent in abeyance, till this unique specimen 
of antiquities should be brought home. Not that 
everybody was silent ; only those who felt that it 
was impossible to argue without data, and to talk 
with nothing to talk about, held their tongues. 
Among the many who can dispute in spite of such 



Novel A ntiquities. 4 1 

a trifle as dearth of matter, controversy and conjecture 
still went on \ and thereby many actually put them- 
selves out of condition to judge of the facts at the 
proper time, by nursing their minds in the impres- 
sions and prejudices originally taken up • and, when 
proof came, were fully prepared, not to investigate, 
but to resist it. Not a few, I heard, decided the 
matter in their own rational way, by " laying bets " 
freely, that the slabs would never come; and I was 
told that if they should, "a good deal of money 
would change hands." 

At length the day came, methought, when these 
curious relics of the Mosaic age arrived, and were 
safely lodged in the British Museum ; and of course 
all the world crowded to see them, as though it 
had never seen a Decalogue before ; — and, indeed, 
it was no doubt a pretty good while since some of 
the visitors had seen one. There it was, however, 
there could be no doubt of that; large slabs, as 
seemed to me, ten feet square, with Hebrew cha- 
racters upon them, no less than two inches long ; 
characters looking, it is true, rude and antique, 
and more angular than those in our printed Bibles, 
but still good legible Hebrew characters notwith- 
standing. 

Men gazed and gazed at this Decalogue, as if they 
really had some intention of keeping it. Those who 
had done little but break the commandments all 



4 2 Novel A n liquifies. 

their lives, now looked at them as earnestly as though 
they thought it was of the uttermost importance 
to ascertain their duty or make sure of their own 
condemnation. But in the majority of cases, I soon 
found they came only to gratify curiosity, to equip 
themselves to take a side, to find out what was 
to be said on either, to wrangle, to know what 
was speculatively true and right, and how to maintain 
it without one thought of practising it. Human 
nature was perfectly consistent in all this, for it 
has ever been more solicitous to speculate about 
duty than to do it ; always professes a code of morals 
better than its practice, and is almost willing to become 
a martyr for doctrines and creeds which, nevertheless, 
it contradicts every day of its life ! 

Methought the spectacle became so popular, that 
excursion trains were organized from all parts of the 
country, and advertised in large placards almost as 
big as the Decalogue itself, with all the usual in- 
citements to view any other taking novelty. People 
made parties to see it, just as they would to the 
Exhibition, or the Zoological Gardens, or the Crystal 
Palace ; and, indeed, a great many Exhibitions were 
jealous of the Museum, and broke the " Decalogue" 
by " coveting" their neighbour's "Decalogue" ex- 
ceedingly. Some, pecuniarily interested in such spec- 
tacles, hinted that it would be good for the "public" 
and good for "religion" if the venerable relic were 



Novel A ntiqiiities. 4 3 

permitted to itinerate to all the principal show-places 
in the kingdom. 

As people became accustomed to the phenomenon, 
the effects of familiarity showed themselves in a 
variety of ways, startling at first, but all of them, 
I fancy, characteristic enough of human nature ; and 
proving too clearly that the anticipations of Michaelis, 
as to the effect of any such accession of evidence, 
must be largely discounted. Tens of thousands, 
indeed, who visited the relic, did so with feelings of 
profound veneration ; but it was principally those who 
were already convinced. To them (as our author 
conjectured it would be), it was a strong confirmation 
of their faith. On the great Commands which they 
had so often lightly read and lightly repeated, and 
as often lightly broken, they looked with new emotions 
of awe and self-condemnation. According to the 
ordinary laws of association, by which mere novelty in 
the mode of presentation will vividly recall half-for- 
gotten truth, reinvest a familiar object with all the 
interest which habit and custom have deadened, and 
dissolve the soul in a flood of unaccustomed emotion, 
they felt almost as if they had stood at the foot of the 
Burning Mount, and seen the tablets written by the 
finger of God Himself. Thousands more, who had 
indeed the otiose historic faith, but nothing besides, 
were in a measure similarly affected, and gazed on the 
memorials with a peculiar solemnity and awe ; and in 



44 Novel Antiquities. 

some of them I do think the impression remained (as 
Socrates says of the orators who so pleasantly tickled 
his vanity) for " three whole days, at least." But they 
were like their prototypes in the Parable ; their con- 
victions " having no depth of earth," soon faded away. 
Their feeling was just as transient as that of the 
Israelites, — at whose fickleness, so often wondered at, 
I wondered no more. Like them, they were ready, in 
a couple of days or so, to worship again the " golden 
calf," as if these momentary emotions had never 
intruded themselves, and as if there had been no 
interruption of their customary absorption in the 
pursuit of gain or pleasure. 

Others scarcely looked at the spectacle with any 
serious feeling at all. Without denying, any more 
than people in general, the reality of the discovery, 
or doubting that they were then actually gazing upon 
the relics which Joshua had set up more than three 
thousand years ago, to be the memorials to distant 
ages of the truth of the Mosaic history, and a salutary 
confirmation of men's faith in it, they soon learned to 
laugh and jest in the very presence of the venerable 
Memorials ! At first, I confess, I was astonished that 
any one should act thus, unless he discredited the dis- 
covery itself. But it only shows that I did not make 
adequate allowance for the moral paradoxes of which 
human nature is capable. For do not the very same 
class of people, in the very same conditions of mind, 



Novel A ntiquilies. 45 

often do the like in public worship, and giggle and 
jest in spite of the solemnities in which they are 
professedly engaged ; and though they say they believe 
as much as anybody the great verities the preacher is 
expounding, and the authority of the Book which 
contains them ? Or did these irreverent spectators 
behave at all differently from the bulk of those who 
frequent an oratorio, — that somewhat equivocal method 
of dramatising religious mysteries ? Part of the 
audience no doubt,- — to whom the music is the 
appropriate vehicle for conveying sentiments which, 
if divorced from it, leave it little more than "a 
tinkling cymbal," — feel with thrilling intensity the 
great truths of which it is so sublime an expression ; 
and, like Handel himself, when he was found dis- 
solved in tears over the attempt to embody his own 
conceptions of the pathos of those words, " He is 
despised and rejected,'' are moved to deepest sym- 
pathy with the music. But thousands, whose whole 
soul — what little there is of it — is in their ears, or 
whose ears, like those of another animal, are their 
principal characteristic, can yet, without at all denying 
their conviction that the music does give expression to 
great truths (in which they will tell you they believe 
as much as anybody), so lose sight of the thought in 
the sound, of the truth in the vehicle of it, as to feel 
no impropriety at all, while coolly peeling an orange, 
in e?icoring the sorrows of Redeeming Love, or ap- 



46 Novel A ntiquities. 

plauding with rapture a recitative of the Future Judg- 
ment. They are as little sensible of their own 
absurdity and indecorum as an audience (of which I 
was one) who were doing honour to a great composer, 
recently deceased, by listening to a requiem to his 
memory, and who actually so forgot the occasion as 
to demand, with much vociferation and gesticulation, 
its gratifying repetition, — which was accordingly given 
by the accommodating orchestra ! And so the 
requiem for the dead served only to call forth noisy 
shouts from the living. It was much as if a man's 
funeral had been so charmingly " performed," that 
nothing would satisfy his friends and relations but to 
have it performed over again ! 

As time went on, methought there were indications 
enough that even the extremest forms of human folly, 
knavery, and irreverence were no more capable of 
being repressed by this venerable symbol of religion 
than by any other. One rogue was detected, at an 
early hour, attempting to cut away some portion as a 
relic, or with a view to make gain of it: he had 
nearly, I was told, chipped off the words " Thou shalt 
not covet," and that too with the words " Thou shalt 
not steal " staring him in the face. If he had not been 
found out in time, he would no doubt have stolen 
these too. Of some friends who expressed their 
horror at this, I asked, how it differed from the 
frequent case of ordinary sacrilege? if men would 



Novel A ntiquities. 4 7 

break open the church box and steal altar-cloths and 
chalices, with all the Ten Commandments in full view 
why should we wonder that they were willing to steal 
the Decalogue itself? Or if they felt no compunction 
in running off with a rare Bible, why should they be ex- 
pected to feel any in appropriating a few words of it ? 

In reply to some inquiries, the custodier told me 
that though the people in general behaved with 
becoming decorum, it was next to impossible to re- 
press that odd passion for immortality by which many 
of the vulgar are impelled to scrawl their ignoble 
names on anything, however sacred ; that more than 
once he had detected "John Smith" or "John 
Brown " endeavouring to inscribe those unlucky words 
on vacant spaces in the tablets. " But how can we 
wonder at it," said he, "when there is no place so 
hallowed that these names are not to be found 
there ? It's my belief that either of these rogues 
would scrawl his name on the door of heaven itself, if 
he could ever get up to it. However," he added, " it 
could only be on the outside — that's one comfort !" 

But with whatever various feelings, permanent or 
transient, of devout reverence, idle curiosity, or 
profane levity, the multitudes in general were dis- 
posed to contemplate this strange spectacle, one 
thing was clear \ that, considered as an instrument 
of confuting the gainsayer or silencing scepticism 
(in which light principally Michaelis thought it 



48 Novel A ntiquities. 

might be of value), our author had greatly over- 
rated it. " If men will not believe Moses and the 
prophets, neither will they believe though one rose 
from the dead." 

I do not deny, indeed, that this singular piece of 
posthumous evidence had the effect he predicted in 
many cases, by arresting the attention of the candid 
sceptic, and leading to a renewed and serious weighing 
of the evidence for the truth of the sacred records 
generally ; but by no means in so many as one would 
have thought likely ; and it was really wonderful to 
see what a variety of plausible reasons w r ere given 
why the relics should not be thought undoubtedly 
genuine. The theory, it is true, of il simultaneous " 
self-deception, — the result of a fanatical antiquarianism, 
—as to the meaning of the inscriptions, was given up 
as 'untenable so soon as the stones were safely lodged 
in the Museum ; the case was as hopeless as the 
theory of the Resurrection propounded by M. Renan. 
But it would have been a great mistake to suppose 
that scepticism had nothing further to say : on the 
contrary, there are few of the arguments against the 
genuineness and authenticity of the Gospels which 
had not their ingenious counterparts in the reasons 
adduced for doubting the genuineness and authenti- 
city of these relics. 

For example, it was observed by some that it by 
no means followed that, because they were discovered 



Novel A 11 tiquities. 4 9 

in such a locality, and in circumstances so suggestive 
of those mentioned in the Book of Deuteronomy, they 
were as ancient as the time of Joshua ; or that they 
were, after all, anything more than an imposture, 
though not on the part of the respected Explorers. 
" It is observable," said they, " that they were found 
in the limits of Samaria " — as if, by the way, they 
could be found (if they were genuine) anywhere else ! 
" Now the Samaritans received the Pentateuch alone, 
and they were continually striving to establish a claim 
to equal participation in the glories of the Mosaic dis- 
pensation with their Jewish rivals. What more likely 
than that the Samaritans, at a far subsequent date to 
that of Moses — finding the injunctions in the Book of 
Deuteronomy, to ' set up ' such memorials, — con- 
ceived the idea of giving eclat to their system of 
worship by getting seeming possession of so remark- 
able a fragment of antiquity; that for these reasons 
they erected the tablets on Mount Ebal, and forged a 
spurious relic of the days of Joshua ?" — It was in vain 
to urge those who once took this idea into their 
heads, that there was no historic proof or probability 
of anything of the kind, and that the enmity and 
jealousy between the two races would have been sure 
to induce the Jews to proclaim and expose the cheat 
as soon as attempted ; not to say that the tablets 
seem to have been utterly unknown to both parties till 
so wonderfully rediscovered ! To this it was rejoined 

E 



5 o Novel A ntiquities. 

that " we could not reasonably expect, in the dearth of 
historic information in relation to those remote times, 
to have every doubt cleared up, and that, to a 
certainty, a thousand important facts, which might 
have solved many a difficulty, had gradually vanished 
from history f — an argument which a good many of 
us felt to come with singular grace and modesty from 
men who never for a moment allowed that that was a 
reason for not demanding a solution of every minute 
objection to the historic character of the Pentateuch 
or the Gospels. 

One said that as the remains had been discovered 
on Mount Ebal, this, though it accorded with the 
locality assigned in the Hebrew Scriptures, contra- 
dicted the statement in the Samaritan Pentateuch — 
which gave Mount Gerizim as the true site. Now, he 
argued, if this (as even Michaelis thought) was the 
correct reading, these could not be the stones referred 
to by Moses : he added that, "for his part, he thought 
the Samaritan Pentateuch was right " (he gave no 
reasons, however), " and that at all events the contra- 
diction between the two texts caused a grave difficulty, 
which, until it was fully cleared up, must leave the 
whole matter covered with doubt." 

Another man having observed a crack across one of 
the slabs, caused in moving it, (though happily it was 
not broken), shook his head sagely, as though he 
tound reason to suspect a callida junctura there; and 



Novel A ntiquities. 5 1 

significantly whispered to those about him that if we 
knew the full history of that " crack," we should, 
he suspected, get to the bottom of the mystery ; 
instead of being as old as Joshua, possibly the whole 
would be found to have been put together "not a 
hundred years ago." But I must do the people the 
justice to say that few paid any heed to this insinua- 
tion, and seemed to think the " crack " was rather in 
his own head. 

Some who flattered themselves that they had irre- 
fragably proved, from the language of the Penta- 
teuch, and an infinity of other arguments, that it 
cannot be referred to the date to which it has been 
generally ascribed, — possibly, they said, parts of it 
may be as early as the time of Ezra, or even Solomon, 
— here took advantage of their own wrong, and easily 
showed that as these tables were a faithful transcript 
of part of the Pentateuch, they also were incontestably 
of far later date than the age of Joshua. " In short," 
said one of them, " the contents of these inscribed 
tablets bear a most suspiciously close resemblance to 
the Decalogue, as given in the Pentateuch." 

This theory — which was very acceptable to the 
multitudes who believe in the infallible nose of modern 
criticism, and its power of scenting out from internal 
evidence the age of any book — had like to have been 
imperilled by some one whose microscopic eye had 
discovered that, after all, there were some minute 



5 2 Novel A ntiquities. 

variations in the forms of two or three words ; and 
who felt disposed to argue, not (as he ought to have 
done) that the preceding theory must be reconsidered, 
but that such " discrepancies " were fatal to the claims 
of a document which purported to be a transcript from 
the Pentateuch. In short, he reasoned much as 
sceptical critics do (or rather did, before Bentley 
refuted them) from similar unimportant " various 
readings " in the New Testament. 

Another, who was not aware of any such discre- 
pancies, and assumed that the one " Decalogue " was 
an exact duplicate of the other, thought that which- 
ever of the two was the oldest, their exact conformity 
was a very suspicious circumstance. Some one asked 
him why two copies of the same thing should not be 
alike ? 

But, on being questioned, his reasoning was found 
plausible enough. He said that as the Pentateuch 
had continued in constant use, and had been con- 
tinually transcribed from age to age, it would natu- 
rally be affected by, and latently bear on its face the 
various changes of inflection, spelling, and forms of 
words, which are the inevitable effects of time and 
custom on all languages ; just as we see that a modern 
edition of one of Sir Thomas More's writings, or even 
of Bacon's (though substantially to all intents and 
purposes the same as the earlier editions), yet ex- 
hibits innumerable diversities in these respects from 



Novel A ntiqiiities. 5 3 

the old copies. But he was quickly silenced by those 
who had already been busy in proving that the 
absence of archaisms was one of the palmary argu- 
ments for demonstrating that the Pentateuch was of 
late date, and begged him for heaven's sake to hold 
his tongue. He did not see that in fact he was 
damaging this sceptical argument, which has been a 
good deal insisted upon in our day, namely, that the 
Pentateuch exhibits too near an approximation to the 
forms and idioms of a later age, — that it is not archaic 
enough. He was refuting that theory without know- 
ing it ! 

One man, a learned Jew (as I afterwards found). 
a devoted admirer of the Rabbis, suggested another 
difficulty. He could not (he allowed), after the con- 
troversies of the last two centuries, maintain with the 
Rabbis of the middle ages the immemorial antiquity 
or the divine origin of the Hebrew points ; nor even 
persist in supposing them as old as Moses. But if he 
did not go quite so far as the elder Buxtorf on this 
question, he yet held for certain (what even Michaelis 
thought probable), that the vowel system had grown 
out of one simpler and older ; that let people say what 
they would about the scriptio defectiva, there never was 
a written language so " defective" as to have no 
better vowel notation than the poor Yod and Aleph on 
these tables. He would as soon have doubted the 
authority of Moses himself, as believe in documents so 



5 4 Novel A ntiquities. 

deplorably naked of all trace of even the rudiments of 
Kametz or Mappik ; and found the absence of all such 
rudiments a certain sign that the asserted antiquity of 
this copy of the Decalogue was a mere dream, not for 
a moment to be admitted by any genuine disciple of 
Rabbi Ben Solomon. 

Another odd fellow, who, though a most orthodox 
believer, had given much time to the investigation of 
ancient alphabets, and had a passion for that class of 
antiquities, was convinced that in several momentous 
points, the letters did not correspond with the more 
ancient Jewish characters. How he could possibly 
tell, with any precision, what was the exact form of 
the letters in the time of Moses, was a puzzle to 
everybody but himself. But he decided that the 
characters approximated far too much to the present 
square letters ; and that though (as many critics have 
conjectured) these " square" letters might have been 
very gradually developed out of Phoenician, yet that at 
all events the transformation had not occurred so 
early ; and that the writing, if genuine, ought to have 
been more like that on " Hasmonean coins," and less 
like that of the " Palmyrene inscriptions." But this 
was a mere individual crotchet, which yet a quantum 
sufficit of pedantry and conceit rendered demonstra- 
tion to him. It showed not merely (as some of the 
other crotchets did) on what trivial grounds men can 
ingeniously parry evidence which it is not pleasant to 



Novel A ntiquities. 5 5 

receive ; but what is still stranger, how incomparably 
more powerful may be the veriest crotchet which has 
come to be indulged by a wayward fancy or perverted 
learning, than the strongest arguments, even when 
these last fall in with the habitual convictions of the 
men who indulge the whimsy : for the good man 
readily admitted the genuineness and authenticity of 
the Pentateuch, and needed, as he said, no confirma- 
tion of his faith whatever. That Joshua put up 
tablets as ordered in Deuteronomy, he had no doubt ; 
but that these were the same, it was ridiculous to 
believe, while Kophs had such big heads and long legs, 
and Gimels were so suspiciously like Nuns. 

One gentleman, I was told, had (in accordance with 
the characteristic tendency of modern science to pitch 
itself right into the most remote antiquity, and to find 
the solution of all mysteries there) delivered a lecture, 
in which he modestly threw out a hint that, from what 
he had heard of the situs in which, and the depth at 
which, the supposed remains were alleged to have 
been found, " he could not help having his doubts 
whether the strata had been disturbed for many 
centuries before the age of Moses ; and that, if so, it 
was a proof at once that a fraud had been committed, 
— as had been undoubtedly the case with some of the 
supposed ' pre-Adamite relics ' that had been palmed 
upon the world." In regard to these last relics indeed, 
his antiquarian faith was in general equal to anything ; 



5 6 Novel A ntiquities. 

but in this case, he became suddenly sceptical. Some 
one gravely told him that, as he so readily received 
stone knives and arrow-heads found in a similar situs, 
as proof of the existence of man perhaps millions of 
years ago, he ought to complete his theory by receiving 
these remains on the same conditions, and so running 
up the Pentateuch (at least this portion of it) to the 
same antiquity with his celts. Half angry and half 
puzzled, he declared that he would sooner believe that, 
than the ordinary age and date of the Pentateuch on 
any such evidence as this story of the Mount Ebal 
Decalogue. Some who heard the lecture were seri- 
ously disposed from such premises to come to the con- 
clusion, that these fragments of the Pentateuch, if not 
the Pentateuch itself, were thousands (why not 
millions ?) of years older than had been generally 
supposed, and corroborative of the fact (now so often 
conceded by scientific men) of the unlimited antiquity 
of the human race. In short, whether it were proved 
that the books of Moses were a very late forgery, or 
genuine relics of pre-Adamite man, seemed equally 
satisfactory to many ; always provided they were 
allowed not to have been composed at the time and by 
the persons generally imagined. 

A solitary disciple of the old-fashioned atheism, who 
most unreasonably felt himself puzzled by these Stone 
Witnesses, when the whole universe, and the Bible to 
boot, gave him no trouble at all, condescended to visit 



Novel A ntiquities. 5 7 

the Museum, and soon came to the conclusion that a 
" notable trick " had been palmed on the world ; and, 
turning to me, asked what could be the " design " of it ? 
I told him gravely that I did not believe in any argu- 
ments from " design ;" and that I could not see, since 
he believed that all the visible universe, and every- 
thing in it (in a word, whatever showed " marks of 
design)," were the effect of impersonal chance, or 
impersonal and unconscious law, why he should not 
believe that the same impersonal agencies had pro- 
duced these inscrutable blocks of stone. He evidently 
hardly knew whether to be angry with me, or to agree 
with me. " However," said he, " suppose the thing to 
be the effect of design, what could the design be ?" I 
told him that, though I did not see any reason, in his 
case, why he should trouble himself about the matter, 
as his theory would solve any phenomena whatever ; 
yet I thought the design, if design there was, was plain 
enough. " And what is that ?" said he. " Why," said 
I, with grave simplicity, " to tell man that he is to love 
God w T ith all his heart, and his neighbour as himself, 
which last I think we can hardly do, if we lightly sus- 
pect people of the most impudent frauds, as at present 
you seem rather inclined to do." 

But, after all, the most wonderful part of the whole 
thing was not the facility with which men made their 
escape from evidence which it was unpleasant to 
receive, or the ingenuity and plausibility of some of 



58 . Novel Antiquities. 

their hypotheses invented for this purpose, or — when 
nothing plausible could be offered, — the trumpery 
arguments with which the Will hoodwinked the Under- 
standing ; I say this was not the most wonderful part 
of the spectacle. Nor was my surprise chiefly excited 
even by what was imcomparably more wonderful, — the 
inappreciable difference the discovery made in the 
bulk of those who, so far from feeling any disposition 
to deny that it was a great confirmation of the truth of 
the Scriptures, were quite willing to allow that it was 
so ; for why, in sober earnest, should they regard the 
new copy of the Decalogue any more than they had 
done the old, or a small part of the Bible than the 
whole of it ? I say it is not these things that most 
surprised me ; there was one thing that surprised me 
still more ; it was to see many vehemently and too 
literally swearing by the claims of this sacred relic to 
profound veneration, though their whole language and 
bearing showed that they had not only no knowledge 
of the subject, but cared not a groat about it; and 
who zealously broke the Commandments in the very 
terms in which they contended for them. 

On one occasion, I remember, on a rude, pert 
sceptic's making some remark of an offensive kind, a 
countryman told him in great dudgeon, and with a 
profane oath, that he was a scurvy rascal ; and added 
that " he would be hanged " (he used, I am sorry to 
say, a much stronger word) "if he would let any one 



Novel A n tiqtcities. 5 9 

laugh at his religion, and that if it was not for the 
company, he would teach him to know better." — 
Another, equally devout, was rejoiced to find these 
supplementary proofs given to the claims of the 
Bible: "In these sceptical times,'*' he said, "it is a 
devilish good thing : and here is an argument which 
that old rogue Colenso, and all his infernal crew of 
Zulus, will find it hard to meet." 

Methought I was awoke out of my dream by a cu- 
rious incident. One sturdy sceptic, who had puzzled 
himself with the various theories for getting over the 
difficulty without implicating the character of the 
exploring party (just as Strauss and other sceptics 
attempt to account for the falsehood of the Gospel 
history without touching the character of the Apostles), 
and had found himself dissatisfied with them all., at 
last came back (as Strauss has done in the case of 
Christianity) to the conclusion that there had been, 
after all, some gross cheating in the matter, and 
that the explorers, as he said aloud, had been "playing 
the knave." It so happened that one of these gentle- 
men was standing near him, and before the words 
were well out of his mouth, — being a man of high 
honour and quick sensibility. — he fairly knocked the 
unlucky sceptic head over heels, at the same time 
saying : " And who are you, or any like you, that you 
should think yourselves of sufficient importance to 
induce a number of honourable men to perjure them- 



60 Novel Antiquities. 

selves, and undergo infinite pains, trouble, and ig- 
nominy, just to deceive you into an unprofitable lie ? 
Do you think we should submit to all this for the 
purpose of hoodwinking such a stupid old owl as you, 
— that needs no deceiving at all, but can deceive 
himself at any time, especially if he be brought into 
the sunlight ?" I really thought it was an answer 
which Moses himself, Apostles, Prophets, and Martyrs 
(though perhaps not in terms so brusque, and cer- 
tainly without the argumenhwi baculiiium, which in 
this case accompanied it), might have reasonably 
addressed to many a suspicious sceptic who has 
doubted their honour, veracity, and even common 
sense. 

There is, perhaps, little probability of the Palestine 
Exploration Society's fulfilling the anticipations of 
Michaelis, or turning my dream into a reality. But if 
they do not find the " Memorial Stones " in question, 
it is certain they will find many highly valuable and 
curious confirmations of sacred writ. God has, no 
doubt, concealed in his archives — the bosom of the 
earth — many a monument which shall explain or 
reconcile the difficulties, or corroborate the statements, 
of His own Word, and we may reasonably believe that 
they will yield themselves to persevering search. The 
society may rest assured there are thousands who are 
watching their labours with the greatest interest. 



6i 



IIL 

CHRISTIANITY VINDICATED FROM 
ALLEGED TENDENCIES TO PERSECUTION, 

/^UR age has not been unfruitful in theological 
paradox ; but few are bolder than that which 
asserts that Christianity, by implication, if not directly, 
patronises the spirit of persecution, and must be held 
responsible for the excesses which have been perpe- 
trated in its name. 

That Christians, so called, like many millions of 
men not so called, have been persecutors, is most true ; 
but, in so far as they have been such, it is demonstrable 
that they have not been Christians. Nothing can be 
plainer than that in its letter and its spirit, by precept 
and example, by direct assertion and oblique inference, 
the code of Christianity, as expounded in its only 
authentic statute-book, the New Testament, utterly 
proscribes all persecution ; all attempts to coerce 
men's wills, or to gain adhesion to its doctrines by any 
other means than those of conviction and persuasion. 

When John and James chafed in angry mood 



6z Christianity Vindicated from 

against those Samaritans who, acting on the genuine 
maxims of persecution, peremptorily refused to admit 
Christ and his disciples (the objects of their national 
bigotry) into their village, they but acted as human 
nature, Jewish or Samaritan, is but too apt to act. 
" Shall we," said they, " call down fire from heaven, 
and consume them, as Elias did?" Christ rebuked 
them in words never to be forgotten, and which ought 
to have determined all such points for His disciples 
through all time: "Ye know not what manner of 
spirit ye are of; for the Son of Man came not to 
destroy men's lives, but to save them." No fairer 
plea for coercion and punishment could be conceived 
than that suggested in the contumelious rejection of 
the Master himself; and yet the Master himself over- 
ruled it. 

Similarly, the texts which tell us that " the wrath of 
man worketh not the righteousness of God ;" that we 
are to " be gentle unto all men, in meekness instructing 
those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will 
give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the 
truth;" that "the weapons of our warfare are not 
carnal but spiritual ;" that Christ's " kingdom is not of 
this world," and many others, imply the same thing. 

Further, the general maxims which Christianity 
inculcates, and which have so often been represented 
as paradoxes of an impracticable patience and meek- 
ness ; those, for example, which enjoin us " not to 



Persecuting Tendencies. 63 

return evil for evil," " to overcome evil with good," 
" not to resist evil," " to turn the left cheek to him 
who smites us on the right," " to yield our coat to him 
who has taken away our cloak," and " with him who 
would compel us to go one mile, to go twain ;" all 
these prove, a fortiori, that it is utterly forbidden to 
the Christian to persecute ; unless he can plead a 
distinct dispensation from them, nay, a liberty to 
invert them all, wherever men are not Christians, or 
not such Christians as himself ; that is to say, towards 
nearly all mankind ! With whatever limitations the 
last three maxims be received, and common sense will 
naturally interpret the extreme and variously coloured 
figurative language rather as a rhetorical expression 
of the predominant spirit of meekness which Christ 
inculcates, than as rules to be literally acted upon, 
they are, at all events, utterly inconsistent with persecu- 
tion in even- form. In a word, the whole of the New 
Testament as clearly condemns persecution in the 
followers of Christ, as the Decalogue forbids theft or 
murder. To charge, therefore, the persecutions which 
have so deeply stained the page of ecclesiastical 
history on Christianity itself, is to charge a code with 
the crimes which have been committed in violation of 
it ; with the crimes of those who professed and owed 
allegiance to it, but never paid it ! And the defence 
of Christianity would, in this respect, be complete, if 
not only many Christians, but all of them, had been 



64 Christianity Vindicated from 

persecutors ; nay, if every one of them had been as 
bad as Bonner. 

All men have broken some of the commands of the 
Decalogue, and not a few have broken all • but no one 
would argue that the Decalogue does not condemn 
their acts. All moral systems, even the very worst 
that men have professed, have still been better than 
the conduct of the men who professed them ; but no 
one supposes that the systems, therefore, sanction the 
very things they condemn. In like manner, the 
character of the code in every country is naturally 
judged by the terms of its statute-book alone ; by the 
letter and spirit of its express prohibitions, and not by 
the degree in which it is obeyed or infringed. The 
law remains the same (good or bad, as the case may 
be), and is not answerable for those who warp or break 
it, let the judges be ever so corrupt, let the gaols be 
ever so full. But, in truth, in no other case but 
Christianity are men so unreasonable as to make any 
system whatsoever responsible for the very conduct it 
expressly condemns, or the faults of those who set it at 
defiance. 

If it be asked, how is it, then, that Christians have 
so often been persecutors ? the answer is, that in this, 
as well as in many other respects, men, in corrupting 
Christianity, warped it to the maxims and passions of 
their own nature, a process by which at last it was so 
transmuted as to bear a very close resemblance to 



Persecuting Tendencies. 65 

religions of undoubted human origin ; and worse could 
not befall it. 

As the Pharisees at length made " the law of God of 
none effect by their traditions," so the corruption of 
the Christian Church gradually obliterated some of 
the divinest features of the Gospel, and stamped upon 
it the human " image and superscription" instead. 
The shape into which man instinctively moulded it, 
was determined by the law of his corrupt nature and 
the fashion of his previous chefs-d'oeuvre of religious 
manufacture. That he should have taught it to perse- 
cute, is not at all more wonderful than that he should 
have invented for it a purgatory; reconsecrated 
idolatry in new forms; substituted ten thousand 
intercessors for one ; shut the Bible, and worshipped 
in an unknown tongue ; commuted the moral and 
spiritual for the ceremonial ; appraised sin at a money 
value, and sold pardons and indulgences by the penny- 
weight. And as, in these changes, Christianity was 
but assimilated to many religions which existed before 
it, and others that exist still ; so, in teaching it to 
persecute, man taught it to do what human nature was 
always prone enough to do, and had been most 
diligently practising against Christianity itself all 
through the first three hundred years of its history !* 

* It has been well said by one who wrote the ' ' History of 
Toleration," "Persecution has not resulted from any particular 
system, but from the prevalence of ignorance, and the force of 
those illiberal prejudices which are natural to the mind of nn- 

F 



66 Christianity Vindicated from 

One would imagine that, with such a code, it was 
not very easy to represent Christianity as a patron of 
persecution, however guilty its professed disciples 
might be. Nor, perhaps, would even the hardiest 
objector venture to charge it with directly inculcating 
it. Still, if we may believe M. Renan,* Christianity 
naturally tends to persecution, by the very fact of its 
" being a faith which asserts that it is exclusively 
true ;" and that every such Faith — that is, every Faith 
which does not think that Truth may be manifold — 
will be apt to persecute too ! Further, that if a man 
is willing to " die " for the truth, he is very likely to be 
willing to " kill " for it. But let us hear the passage ; 
it occurs apropos — or, more correctly speaking, mal- 
apropos — of the account of the martyrdom of St. 
Stephen : — 

"And thus opened the era of Christian martyrs. 



luto7'ed men." An acute critic on this passage justly rejects any 
such qualification : "In fact it may be laid down as a funda- 
mental principle that intolerance is natural to man in every state 
of society." — Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. 

1 ' Nor can this remnant of the spirit of Romanism be so called, 
in the sense of making the peculiar system of that Church pro- 
perly the cause of it, because we find the same principle mani- 
fested in its full force among the Mahometans, who cannot in 
any way be regarded as deriving it from Romanism. 

"It is derivable rather from the character of the c natural 
man,' from the natural feelings of resentment against opponents, 
of love of control, and of a desire to promote apparent good." — 
Whatelys " Errors of Romanism " pp. 243-4. 

* In his recent book, Les Apotres. 



Persecuting Tendencies. 6 7 

Martyrdom was not altogether a thing unknown. Not 
to speak of John the Baptist and of Jesus, Judaism, at 
the epoch of Antiochus Epiphanes, had had its faithful 
witnesses, even to the death. But the succession ol 
courageous victims, which began w T ith St. Stephen, has 
exercised a peculiar influence on the history of the 
human mind. It introduced into the western world a 
sentiment which was foreign to it, — an exclusive and 
absolute Faith ; the notion that there is but one re- 
ligion that is good and true. In this sense, the martyrs 
commenced the era of intolerance. One may say, with a 
good deal of probability, that he who would give his life 
for his faith, would be intolerant if he had the power. 
Christianity, which passed through three centuries of 
persecution, having become in its turn predominant, 
was more persecuting than any religion that ever 
existed. When a man has shed his blood for a cause, 
he is too ready to shed the blood of other people, in 
order to preserve the treasure he has acquired."* 

On this curious passage I would make a few- 
remarks : — ■ 

" In this sense, the martyrs introduced the era of 
intolerance !" It would not be easy to find a better 
illustration of the fable of the wolf accusing the lamb 
of troubling the waters. One might almost as well say 
that not Cain, but Abel, introduced " the era " of 
murders into the world, or that the slaughtering of 
* Les Apdtres, p. 148. 



68 Christianity Vindicated from 

sheep introduced the era of butchers ; though it were 
surely more intelligible to say that the era of butchers 
introduced the slaughtering of sheep. There must 
have been persecutors before there could be martyrs ; 
and before there were Christian persecutors, we know 
that heathen persecutors had been making Christian 
martyrs for three hundred years ; a tolerable proof 
that "the era of intolerance " dates higher than Anno 
Domini, and that persecution is no special character- 
istic of those who believe that there is but one 
religion " exclusively true." On the contrary, it was 
practised by those whose indifferentism and levity 
could in other cases theoretically tolerate anything. 
In truth, it is too late to trace the lineage of intole- 
rance to Christianity, with the history of the first three 
centuries before us. 

But the fallacies in the passage do not end with this 
odd anachronism — this curious example of putting the 
" cart before the horse." Is it a, fact that the belief in 
a religion which asserts itself to be " exclusively true " 
is at all necessarily connected with persecution? 
History does not bear out this statement. It is quite 
true that men are universally apt to assert their own 
dogmas with undue vehemence, and in proportion to 
their supposed importance : apt to be angry if they 
are contradicted \ and if there be the power, apt to 
use violence to give effect to them. It is a tendency, 
not peculiar to religion only, but common to politics, 



Persecuting Tendencies. 69 

sometimes even to philosophy and science ; for even 
these too can get angry and unjust in their eagerness 
to assert their own doctrines, or suppress those of 
their opponents. But this is the fault of human 
nature, and not of the " exclusive" character of any 
presumed Truth. It is human nature that has thus 
imported into the controversy between Truth and 
Error what did not belong to it. But that the 
connection is not necessary, is found in this one plain 
fact — that History clearly shows it to be, not invari- 
able, but accidental. 

Not only did Christianity uncompromisingly affirm 
the " exclusive " validity of its doctrines, and yet 
teach, side by side with them, and as one of them, that 
no violence should be used on its behalf; not only 
did Christ himself, who made the most unlimited 
claims, inculcate, as He also practised, lessons of the 
most unlimited charity ; not only did Christianity for 
three centuries maintain the same exclusive claims, 
and yet renounce all " carnal weapons " in its support ; 
but when, after ages of spiritual slumber, our fore- 
fathers, by a renewed study of the Gospel, and 
a distinct appeal to its principles, vindicated and 
established the doctrines of religious freedom, they 
still held as firmly as any man could, the " exclusive 
and absolute " truth of Christianity ; and millions, since 
their day, have not thought there was any incon- 
sistency in sincerely holding both positions. Indeed 



jo Christianity Vindicated from 

it requires no long demonstration to prove that there 
would be the grossest inconsistency in not holding 
both • for on the one hand, if there be Truth at all, its 
claims i?iust be exclusive, unless Truth, like Error, can 
be manifold ; and on the other hand, Truth cannot in 
the nature of things be propagated by violence, or by 
anything but conviction and persuasion ; in other 
words, only under the auspices of liberty. And we 
must be pardoned for saying that if our forefathers had 
not believed in the paramount and exclusive claims of 
Christianity, we have some doubts whether we should 
ever have recovered our liberties at all ; whether they 
would have had the courage and fortitude to face the 
dangers and sufferings necessary for this purpose. 
Certain it is, that no man is more willing to remain a 
timid and slavish adherent of the system "that is in 
possession," no matter what, — more willing " to 
remain where he is," than many a modern • champion 
of the doctrine that " doctrine is of no consequence," 
and " one religion as true and as good as another." 

We see then in point of fact, that millions within the 
last two centuries have been perfectly convinced that 
Christianity is " absolutely and exclusively true," and 
yet have had no disposition to cut other people's 
throats, or even mulct or imprison them, if they did not 
adopt the same opinions ; and millions still hold both 
dogmas in conjunction ; as indeed they cannot but do, 
if they sincerely believe the New Testament. Thou- 



Persecuting Tendencies. 7 1 

sands of these, like the early champions of the great 
doctrine of religious liberty, would be perfectly willing 
to be martyrs for either the one or the other of the 
tenns of this supposed disjunction ; — for the exclusive 
Truth of the Gospel, or the Rights of Conscience 
recognised by it. But in fact there is no sort of con- 
nection between the terms of these propositions : " I 
believe this to be an absolute religious truth," and " I 
believe therefore that it is my duty to lay violent hands 
on anybody who gainsays or denies it f * but least of 
all to him who knows what he is talking about : since, 
whether Truth be exclusively with him or not, he 
knows, not only that with whomsoever it is, it must 
be exclusive in its claims, but that it is not worth a 
farthing to anybody that professes it unless it be re- 
ceived as the result of moral conviction, and therefore 
voluntarily embraced. 

The tendency, then, to persecute may or may not 
be connected (as we see, in fact) with the presumed 
possession of " exclusive and absolute religious truth :" 
that variable connection itself shows that it is but acci- 
dental. When the disposition to persecute exists, there- 
fore, it must be traced to other principles, and these 
are not far to seek. They are, in fact, none other than 
the impatience of opposition and greed of dominion, 

* On this subject some admirable remarks will be found in 
Whately's Essays on "Persecution," in Errors of Romanism, 
pp. 248 — 250. 



7 2 Christianity Vindicated from 

which readily enough explain the analogous excesses 
both of secular and spiritual despotism. There is no 
more difficulty in accounting for the one set of enor- 
mities than the other ; and one origin will sufficiently 
account for both. The fons malonim is in human 
nature : in its pride and selfishness, its fiery impatience 
of opposition, its imperious will ; in the hateful dispo- 
sition of Power, to ride rough-shod over all who are 
opposed to it, to make everybody think (or say he 
thinks) as it bids, or cease to think at all. That same 
disposition, which is the cause of all tyranny, made 
man, in corrupting the Gospel, corrupt it in the sense 
and direction of his own usurping nature, whereby it 
became as easy for him to cancel the plainest and 
clearest prohibitions of persecution, as it is for the 
ordinary tyrant to sponge out, in favour of his own 
arrogant will, the instincts of humanity and conscience, 
and all the sanctions of the eternal, though unwritten, 
law. No doubt both the religious tyrant and the 
political tyrant will gloze over, and varnish their evil 
deeds by plausible pretexts (for this is a necessity of 
human nature, for its own peace sake) : the one prating 
of preventing the spread of deadly error ; and the 
other, of preventing the spread of as deadly anarchy : 
but the true motives, which these things only mask, are 
the same in each. There is no reason why we should 
seek for any other origin of the truculence of a Bonner 
than that which explains the truculence of a Jeffries ; 



Persecuting Tendencies. 73 

and the same cruel passions and maxims which filled 
the cells of the Bastile will, (variously modified), suffice 
to fill the cells of the Inquisition. 

The closing statement of the paradoxical passage I 
am commenting on is not less curious than the rest. 
" We may say, with probability, that he who gives his 
life for his faith, would be intolerant, if he were to 
obtain the ascendancy ; and that when a man has shed 
his blood for a cause, he is too much disposed to shed 
the blood of other people, in order to preserve the 
treasure he has acquired." If there is any plausibility 
at all in this last sentence, it is because the form of 
expression disguises the difference between active and 
passive. In a figurative sense certainly, the martyr may 
be said " to shed his own blood,"' but he is quite 
passive, notwithstanding. M. Renan would find it not 
so plausible to assert that if a man is willing to be 
made a martyr for a cause, he is very likely to make 
martyrs of other people. So far as there is any truth 
in the statement at all, it has no special relation to 
Christianity. In a persecuting age, and among a 
persecuting people (no matter what the religion)? 
mutual wrongs will no doubt inflame mutual hatred, 
and either party, having more angry men than willing 
martyrs, will be apt to persecute when it is the stronger. 
But to suppose that those who have voluntarily 
submitted to death, would have been the most ready 
to inflict it on others — that a Poly carp would have 



74 Christianity Vindicated from 

made an excellent Dominick, and Latimer a con- 
spicuous Inquisitor, we see as little reason to believe 
as that a murdered man would be likely to have been 
a murderer ; or that because it is true that he 
"Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free," 

therefore we must believe Johnson's parody of the line, 
and say, 

"Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat." 

M. Renan says that " Christianity, which had passed 
through three centuries of persecution, became (once 
made predominant) more persecuting than any religion 
that has ever existed." The statement may, perhaps, 
be disputed. Whether Imperial Rome, or Papal 
Rome, or Mohammedanism is best entitled to the 
unenviable palm of a victorious cruelty, may well 
perplex any student of history to decide. But be this 
how it will, all that is necessary for a reasonable 
advocate of Christianity to maintain is, that whether a 
corrupt Christianity stand first or last in the list, it 
attains its bad eminence in virtue of its being as- 
similated to that same human nature which inspired 
both the religion of Imperial Rome and that of the 
Arabian impostor. The statute-book of Christianity 
renounces and condemns the counterfeit that assumes 
her name. 

Another, though not novel, argument to prove that 
Christianity encourages persecution, has been recently 



Persecuting Tendencies. 75 

insisted on. It has been urged that its appalling 
doctrine of " Future Punishments" necessarily tends to 
steel the heart to pity, and in a manner compels the 
humane mind to adopt cruel means for the repression 
of errors and heresies that would involve such fearful 
consequences. It is, perhaps, superfluous to remark 
that one half of this argument answers the other ; for, 
if the doctrine in question tends to sear the heart and 
inure it to cruelty, it is hard to say what room it leaves 
for that exquisite humanity which, in pure com- 
passion, consigns men to rack and faggot, to pre- 
vent worse consequences ! But in point of fact, the 
argument breaks down, in whatever point of view it is 
considered. 

First, even if we were to grant that the darkest 
aspect of the doctrine in question was the incontro- 
vertible view of the New Testament (which, however, 
a not inconsiderable, and probably increasing party 
deny to be its correct interpretation), still it cannot annul 
the express injunctions of that same book (regarded by 
all as incontrovertible), to abstain from all persecution ; 
and therefore, as already said, Christianity cannot be 
answerable for the infractions of its rule, let men's 
reasons be ever so plausible. The Gospel is perfectly 
clear in the matter of persecution, and at once vindi- 
cates itself from any tampering with it, under pretended 
dread of the consequences of its doctrine on other 
points. 



J 6 Christianity Vindicated from 

Secondly, as already hinted, it is not very easy to 
imagine a humanity that takes so eccentric a way of 
manifesting itself. 

Thirdly, as a recent writer (in the Times if we 
mistake not), has well observed, the argument cuts 
both ways ; — for a humane man would naturally think 
that so much more dreadful a retribution to the heretic 
than he could inflict might well absolve him from any 
attempt to anticipate or increase it; and that, for 
others, the menace of it might serve (if anything 
could) as a warning to them, quite as well as the 
humane cruelty of Inquisitors; — which last, as ex- 
perience has long since convinced the world, is by no 
means an infallible malleus hereticorum. 

Fourthly, that though it need not be denied that 
there have been persecutors here and there (as Sir 
Thomas More or Cranmer, for example), who honestly 
persuaded themselves that they were torturing men's 
bodies out of love to men's souls, yet the general 
characteristics of the coarse insolent spirits who have 
delighted in work of this kind, and done the principal 
part of the religious carcass-butchers of the world, — the 
Alvas and the Bonners,- — show that when they dropped 
men's bodies into the fire, in order to snatch men's 
souls out of it, they were no more prompted by 
humanity, than were the great despots and tyrants of 
another kind, who have inflicted similar and equal 
cruelties on their species without any such pretended 



Persecuting Tendencies. JJ 

reasons at all* Indeed, considering the enormous load 
of suffering under which the wickedness of ordinary 
despotism has made mankind groan, it seems ludicrous 
to account for that which a parallel religious despotism 
has inflicted, by supposing it the result, not of vulgar 
passions, which will account (as a general rule) 
equally for both, but of a subtle humanity, which, 
though mistaken in its means, was naturally misled, by 
ingenious deductions from one doctrine of Christianity, 
utterly to ignore and trample under foot another, and 
that other written as with a sunbeam on every page of 
the New Testament ! It is, perhaps, hardly too much 
to suspect that this half-apology for the excesses of 
religious persecution (which, in fact, as little need far- 
fetched theories to account for them as the analogous 
excesses of other forms of man's depravity) would not 
have been offered, but for the sinister purpose of 
damaging Christianity, by making it in some way 
responsible for the persecutions, which nevertheless, it 
so explicitly forbids and condemns. 

Fifthly, it may be remarked, that if the theory were 
worth a pin, and the doctrine in question be naturally 
and necessarily connected with persecution, then those 
who held it could certainly never have discovered (and 

* "The desire," says "Whately, "of saving men from the 
dreadful doom in the next world denounced on those ' who do 
not obey the truth,' has often been a reason, and oftener perhaps 
a plea, for seeking to enforce a right faith, and to put down 
religious error by all possible means." 



78 Christianity Vindicated from 

least of all out of the Gospel itself) the other doctrine, — 
that all persecution is unlawful. Yet we all know that 
the principles of religious liberty and toleration were, 
after ages of persecution, first reasserted and vindicated, 
out of the Gospel itself, by those who still firmly held 
the dogma of eternal punishment; and that these 
principles are now as zealously maintained to be indis- 
putable doctrines of Scripture, by those who affirm as 
by those who deny that dogma. They are just as 
zealous advocates of the rights of conscience as any 
sceptics can possibly be. If it be said (as has been 
said) that this is because men do not really believe this 
appalling doctrine, then the argument answers itself; 
for certainly a doctrine which is not believed will 
neither account for the cruelty, nor the humanity, nor 
that strange tertium quid, the humane cruelty, by which 
it is supposed to lead inevitably to persecution i 

And lastly, as if to show that by every test of the 
Baconian induction, this theory must be rejected, not 
only is it true that the doctrines of religious toleration 
were first vindicated and established by those who 
never questioned the obnoxious dogma ; but religious 
parties who never supposed that the differences 
between them involved any such dreadful results as 
the forfeiture of salvation, or doubted that both 
the one side and the other might get safe to heaven, 
have been too often just as prompt to persecute one 
another, as if they had been divided by the deadliest 



Persecuting Tendencies. 79 

heresy. Not only have Papists burnt Protestants, and 
Protestants burnt Papists, but Protestants have cruelly 
persecuted one another, though all unanimously con- 
ceded that the faith of their opponents contained every- 
thing that was essential to salvation. 

It is, indeed, a mystery of wickedness that men 
should thus have warped the plain literal declarations 
of what they professed to revere as the statute-book of 
their Master. Yet it is clear that neither He nor it is 
responsible for this. It was part of man's " New 
Gospel," his corrupted edition of the original institute; 
— one of the very points wherein it differs from the 
genuine ^EvayyiXcov, which, in this respect as in so 
many others, contradicts the original tendencies of his 
nature. When man remodelled the Gospel by cor- 
rupting it, he, in this as in other points, acted upon 
the usual plan of idolaters, " who make a God after 
their own image." The sublime idea of a religion 
claiming to be exclusively authoritative, and yet dis- 
claiming peremptorily all violence and coercion in its 
propagation — monopolising exclusive truth, and yet 
asserting and conceding universal liberty — had never 
presented itself to the minds of merely mortal religion- 
makers. The forms of toleration with which the 
ancient world was familiar, fell far short of any such 
conception. As may be easily shown, they were a 
result either of that indifferentism, which may well 
tolerate what it does not care about ; or of the indolent, 



80 Christianity Vindicated from 

unambitious temper of the local and national idol- 
atries, whose gods sociably partitioned out the moral 
Poland among themselves, and were content each with 
his own share ; or, in the case of Rome, of that astute 
policy, which ever characterised her, and by which 
she reconciled the subject nations to her iron rule ; a 
policy which she abandoned the moment she found 
herself face to face with a moral system, which, 
though abjuring all "carnal weapons," aspired to a 
still wider and more durable dominion than her own, 
and portended, as she fancied, trouble to her in the 
attempt to achieve it. 

Modern sceptics, of course, applaud with Gibbon, 
the toleration generally practised by the ancient 
heathen, and are fond of contrasting it favourably 
with the too common bigotry of both Jew and Christian. 
It is a topic of praise which has been often copiously 
dwelt upon, and sometimes in exaggerated terms ; for, 
as Bentley says in his reply to Collins, the examples of 
Socrates, Aristotle, Diagoras, and others ; the frequent 
jealousies not only of the partisans of different systems 
of idolatry, but even of " sects " of the same idolatry ■ 
the mutual wrongs which, according to Juvenal, were 
inflicted by religious animosity, when it awkwardly 
happened that one man devoutly worshipped the God 
which another man ate, shows that even the most 
easy-going heathenism could, upon occasion, become 
intolerant. As to Rome (the peculiar object of.pane- 



Persecuting Tendencies. 81 



\> 



gyric), her toleration seems to have been entirely 
measured by her policy, In her earlier days, and 
when the elements of her population were compara- 
tively homogeneous, she could be jealous of the in- 
tegrity of the old Roman rites, and (as Livy, Cicero^ 
and other writers show) again and again issued severe 
decrees against religious innovations. When she 
became the mistress of the world, she doubtless found, 
like other great empires, that it was more easy to 
induce the subject nations to submit to her political 
rule, than to abandon their religion ; and, as her truly 
practical policy aimed only at a civil uniformity, she, 
as already said, astutely humoured them all in the 
matter of their gods. There was no reason why she 
should not, as long as these gods were content to 
dwell on easy terms with one another, satisfied each 
with his own share of worshippers, his daily sniff of 
sacrificial smoke, and dole of libation and incense. 
But the true nature and limits of her toleration were 
at once disclosed the moment a system arose which 
asserted " absolute and exclusive truth,' 1 and avowed 
its determination to achieve, though by moral means 
alone, a victory over the rival creeds. Three centu- 
ries of bitter persecution proved how intolerant Rome 
really was, in spite of all her boasted lenience. They 
proved that it is not necessarily those who assert a 
system " exclusively true," that persecute for it \ those 
who only hear it propounded, can persecute quite as 

G 



82 Christianity Vindicated from 

rigorously. But the toleration which Gibbon so highly 
applauds, even while it lasted, was assuredly of little 
worth. It was the expression of contemptuous in- 
differentism, and sprang neither from a sympathetic 
charity, nor any lofty sense of the rights of conscience. 
How could it, when it was founded upon a state of 
things so epigrammatically expressed by the historian 
himself? He says, and truly, " that in the view of 
the philosopher, all religions were equally false ; in 
the view of the vulgar, all equally true \ in the view of 
the statesman, all equally expedient." All these might 
easily tolerate what they felt either indifference or 
contempt for. In truth, it was a toleration not alto- 
gether unlike that which is often pleaded for in the 
present day, and had about the same merit. 

There are those, for example, who tell us that 
" dogma is of little consequence," and that it is of the 
essence of intolerance to assert for any one doctrine 
that it is " absolute and exclusive truth." Now, of 
course, if dogmas are of no importance, a wise man 
will be indifferent to them all ; and all who are as in- 
different as himself, may well indulge one another 
in their trivial or accidental preferences. Substitute 
now "dogma" for u idol," and you will have a state of 
things much resembling that in virtue of which all the 
divinities of Olympus, Syria, and Egypt, interchanged 
courtesies and good offices. In some respects, indeed, 
this modern toleration exceeds the ancient ; Greeks 



Persecuting Tendencies. 83 

and Romans never seem to have thought that the 
votaries of Jupiter, Bacchus, and Venus, could really 
all worship at the same time, in the same temple, and 
with the same formularies; and still less deemed it 
a privilege of their religious liberty, not to let it be 
even clearly known of what deity they were the 
worshippers. 

Religious liberty is indeed a most precious and 
sacred thing, and by it I understand the right of any 
man, uncoerced, unmolested by his fellows, — without 
bribe or menace, — to form, and manfully avow, his 
religious opinions, let them be what they may. 

But one of the most precious of the privileges of 
our new form of liberty is sometimes alleged to be,, 
that, if loss of stipend or position be involved, we 
need not manfully avow, but may timidly conceal our 
opinions, or express them with politic ambiguities or 
subterfuges. What should we think of a political 
liberty of the like kind ? What should we say to a 
man boasting of his political liberty, who if we asked 
him, " And what, my friend, are your opinions ? with 
which party do you side ? what policy do you advo- 
cate ?" should rejoin — " Tell you my opinions ? You 
shall not catch me tripping, I promise you. No, it is 
one of the immunities of my political liberty, to keep 
all my political opinions to myself." " Why, as to 
that? would be the reply, "it is an equal privilege of 
political slavery also." Surely this curious sort of 



84 Christianity Vindicated from 

liberty is the genuine product of those same views 
which dictated the saying ascribed to M. Talleyrand 
and to so many more, " That the tongue was given 
us, not to express but to conceal our thoughts." Such 
concealment may be called liberty in religion, but it 
would certainly be deemed slavery in politics. But 
this liberty sometimes goes further. 

In Dutch, and French, and German churches, we 
find men who have written books on the very model 
of M. Renan's, who reject every shred of the miracu- 
lous history of Christ, and every one of the character- 
istic doctrines of Christianity, yet asserting, and their 
compatriots echoing, their right to retain their pro- 
fessorial chairs and pulpits ! But the toleration which 
it implies is a step beyond the toleration even of the 
ancient polytheists. 

The combination, in Christianity, of a claim to 
authoritative truth and undivided allegiance, with an 
absolute prohibition of all application of force in its 
propagation, — leaving its rewards and punishments 
alike to a Future State, — forms one of the many 
peculiar traits which discriminate this religion from 
others of acknowledged human origin. The toleration 
of the ancient world, so far as it existed, mainly 
depended on the recognition of many co-ordinate 
deities, and on the theory that one religious system 
might be as good as another. Whenever a religion, 
like Mahometanism, denied this, and made exclusive 



Persecuting Tendencies. 85 

pretensions to authority, then coercion and persecution 
were appealed to. 

For similar reasons, when human nature proceeds to 
remodel, or in other words, corrupt Christianity, it 
rends asunder the above two elements originally con- 
joined in it, and either affirms with our forefathers, 
that persecution is the complement of exclusive 
claims to allegiance, or denies, with too many in the 
present day, that exclusive claims can consist with 
perfect toleration, and that consequently a repudiation 
of such claims is the complement of religious freedom. 
But the statute-book of Christianity distinctly affirms 
both the elements in question : and it is one of the 
evidences that it is not of human origin, that in this, 
as in so many other respects, it is sharply discriminated 
from the religions which man has fabricated, and no 
less from its transformed self, whenever man remodels 
it (as he naturally will), in the direction of his own 
passions and prejudices. 

In truth, this trait of Christianity, however unknown 
to other religions, is so far from being paradoxical in 
itself, that it constitutes one of the many '-'analogies," 
in addition to those which Butler has given us, of its 
correspondence with the " constitution and course of 
nature." The Moral Government of God, like Chris- 
tianity, asserts its exclusive, authoritative, and in- 
violable claims. Yet precisely because it is moral, and 
addressed to beings with Reason, Conscience, and Will, 



86 Christianity Vindicated from 

it not only declares that no coercion shall be used, but 
that no coercion can \ that being moral, it must be left 
to its subjects to obey or disobey it. It simply says, 
" Take or leave, but you must accept the conse- 
quences." In like manner does Christianity assert ex- 
clusive authority and universal liberty at the same time. 
It becomes a very interesting question, how it 
happe?is that in this, as in so many other points, unso- 
phisticated Christianity, as laid down in the New 
Testament, is so strongly discriminated from other 
religions ; thereby showing that it is not a religion 
which man was likely to invent, and affording a strong 
confirmation of its superhuman origin. It is a point, 
however, which the opponents of Christianity too 
generally disregard. They content themselves for the 
most part with insisting on the fancied resemblances 
between Christianity, and other religions that are 
admitted to be of human origin, and therefore infer 
that this religion too may. have had a similar origin. 
But it is far more to the purpose, as well as more 
difficult, to account for the differences. Of the two 
chief elements of the philosophical genius (according to 
Bacon), the faculty of seizing analogies and the faculty 
of discriminating differences, the latter, in the present 
case, is incomparably the more important. Chris- 
tianity and other religions, so far forth as they are 
religions, must have some points of resemblance. The 
most clumsy counterfeits, the most spurious imitations, 



Persecuting Tendencies. 87 

must, in order to have any power to deceive at all, 
have their similarities to what is genuine. The great 
point is to detect and account for the differences. 

The Christian apologist has reason to complain of 
the adversaries of Christianity in this matter. For ex- 
ample, if the appeal be to Miracles, the answer often 
is : — " Oh, every religion has its tales of miracles !" 
But to say nothing of the character or the historic evi- 
dence of the Christian Miracles, as compared with 
others, has any other religion, except the Jewish, been 
based 'on an appeal to miracles ? Has any other, on such 
appeal, procured assent to its claims in the presence 
of a prejudiced and hostile world ? It is easy to 
account for miraculous stories grafted upon a system 
which can plead long prescription, — for legends which 
have grown up gradually amongst its devoted partisans. 
But what religion, except Christianity, ever success- 
fully appealed to miracles in an historic age, and in the 
face of such prejudices and hostility as both Jew and 
Gentile felt towards it? We know that [Mahomet 
declined the test \ and the few like the " French 
prophets" a century ago, who have attempted any- 
thing of the kind, have signally and instantly failed. 

Similarly ; if reference be made to the fact of Christ's 
Resurrection, we are told by writers like M. Renan, 
" Oh, we see in all ages of the world, multitudes who 
mistook maniacal hallucinations for divine realities : 
the illusions of a Bedlamite, or of some petty sect of 



88 Christianity Vindicated from 

enthusiasts, are as real to them as the visions of the 
Apostles were to them." But does the " Bedlamite," 
or the " petty sect," inaugurate, as M. Renan admits 
the Apostles did, a new era in the world's history, and 
give it "a new religious code for humanity?" Do 
they ever get the world to go mad too? The ''Bed- 
lamite " gets nothing but to be shut up in Bedlam, and 
the petty sect is only laughed at, as hundreds of them 
have been, and then passes away. 

Again ; if appeal be made to the extent to which 
this religion has spread in the face of so mighty ob- 
stacles, the answer is, " Oh, every nation and every 
race has its favourite superstitions, propagates them 
with avidity, and supports them by its power." But 
what we want to know is, how it was that this religion 
set at nought the lines of demarcation between nation 
and nation, and race and race, intruded its own peculiar 
doctrines and worship in the place of their cherished 
superstitions, and found a tongue in every language, 
and a home in every clime ? 

If appeal be made to the rapidity of the early con- 
quests of Christianity, the answer is: — " Oh, Mahomet- 
anism was equally rapid f forgetting that the very 
point of difference is, that Christianity had no force to 
appeal to, and Mahometanism achieved its principal 
conquests by that and by nothing else. 

If appeal be made to the morality of Christianity, 
the answer is, " Oh, every religion has its morality, 



Persecuting Tendencies. 8 9 

which more or less approximates to the truth.*' But 
what we want to know is. how the ethics of this religion 
came to differ from the ethics of other religions ? how 
it came to take under its special patronage the passive 
virtues, the virtues man least loves : to make every- 
thing depend upon internal purity, and to set practical 
morality infinitely above ceremonial observances ? 

If the appeal be made to the wonderful composi- 
tions in which the religion of Christ is consigned to 
us, the answer is. " Oh, every religion has its sacred 
books." But the question is. have they exacted from 
the genius, learning, and culture of the most civilized 
nations and of the most various races, a millionth part 
of the homage which these books have done ? 

And so it is with many other topics of argument. 
The differences between Christianity and other reli- 
gions are for the most part left unaccounted for. and 
ignored. If any man will fairly consider all the differ- 
ences in the character, history, and effects of Chris- 
tianity, as compared with religions which have un- 
doubtedly been of human origin, he will then, and 
then only, appreciate the improbability of its being 
the work of man: and that inference will be further 
strengthened if he considers that, when man has 
innovated upon it he has (as in the matter of perse- 
cution) naturally assimilated it to his own ordinary 
handiwork, thereby giving additional proof how little 
it was likely to come from him. 



9 o 



IV. 
THE STORY OF JOHN HUSS. 

^"PHE story of John Huss, the great Bohemian 
Reformer, has been often told, and is sufficiently 
familiar to the student of ecclesiastical history. But 
it may be doubted whether it has been so well known 
to ordinary readers, either as it deserves to be, or as 
that of Luther unquestionably is. This is partly to 
be ascribed to the remoteness of the age in which he 
lived, — it is now just 450 years since his martyrdom ; 
partly to the character of the reforms he aimed at, 
and which did not touch the great doctrinal abuses, 
the correction of which, after all, was an essential 
preliminary to any radical Reformation, such as the 
Church required, and Luther achieved ; partly to the 
fact that the heroic effort he made was not successful, 
and that his memory has been clouded by the sub- 
sequent excesses of his followers; lastly, and above 
all perhaps, to the circumstance, that his name has 



The Story of John Huss. 9 1 

been lost in the more illustrious name of Luther, — 
in the blaze of whose glory this bright morning star 
of the Reformation has almost faded from our eyes. 
For these reasons it may be well to say a little 
respecting the principal incidents of his life and the 
more striking traits of his character, for the sake of 
the many who have not paid much, or, perhaps, any 
attention to the claims of the great Bohemian to the 
grateful homage and everlasting remembrance of man- 
kind. 

Nor ought any who love and revere the name of 
Luther, to be ignorant that it was probably due to 
Huss that Luther was able to achieve so much ; nay, 
that he lived to achieve anything. We may say this, 
not merely because Huss was a pioneer in the same 
great work ; that he shaped many of the stones, and 
hewed much of the timber, of that Temple he was not 
permitted to build ; that he shook the outworks of the 
fortress which it was reserved for Luther to storm; 
not merely because Luther derived some lights, and 
still greater stimulus, at an early period of his career, 
from the history and writings of Huss, as is seen 
clearly in his letters, and in the allusions he made to 
him at the Leipsic Disputation;* not merely, I say, 

* "When I studied at Erfurdt," says Luther, in the edition 
of the letters of Huss (1537), "I found in the library of the con- 
vent, a book entitled The Sermons of John Huss. I had a great 
curiosity to know what doctrines that arch-heretic had propa- 
gated. My astonishment was incredible. I could not com- 



92 The Story of John Huss. 

for these reasons (in fact, all the " Reformers before 
the Reformation/' as they have been well called, are 
entitled to that praise), but for a more special reason. 
In all likelihood, Huss was not simply the precursor 
of Luther, but literally paid down, in his martyrdom, 
the ransom of Luther's life. That violation of the 
imperial safe-conduct which, to the eternal shame of 
Emperor, Pope, Cardinals, and the whole Council of 
Constance, involved the death of Huss, was the very 
thing which probably saved the life of Luther at 
Worms. Vehemently was Charles V. urged to imitate 
the conduct of Sigismund, and violate, for the sake of 
the Church, the safe-conduct granted to Luther; 
strongly was he plied by the same casuistry, namely, 
that a no faith was to be kept with heretics;" but 
Charles replied that " he had no wish to blush like 
his predecessor Sigismund," — in allusion to the story 
of Sigismund's having manifested so much weakness, 
when Huss alluded to the subject of his safe-conduct, 
at the Council of Constance. The scandal of that 
iniquitous transaction of the previous century was 
Luther's aegis at Worms, and hence he safely quitted 
that place which he had entered with such dauntless 



prehend why they burnt so great a man, who explained the 
Scriptures with so much skill and gravity. . . But as his name 
was held in such abhorrence that I imagined the sky would fall 
and the sun be darkened if I made honourable mention of him, I 
shut the book with no little indignation." 



The Story of John Huss. 93 

courage in defiance of so many omens of evil. Thus 

was Huss probably the saviour of Luther — 

Dipped in his fellow's blood 
The living bird went free. 

The courage of Luther, indeed, was as great as 
though he too had died a martyr. During his whole 
progress to Worms, whither he went with such in- 
flexible obstinacy against all the remonstrances of his 
friends and the muttered threats of his enemies, it is 
evident that he contemplated the too great likelihood 
of sharing the fate of Huss. The genius and maxims 
of ecclesiastical policy were unchanged ; the terrors 
of Reformation were at least as strong, and the in- 
heritors of the persecuting principles of Constance 
equally unscrupulous. He would assuredly have died 
if Charles V. had not been afraid of " blushing." 

And as Huss deserves the veneration of posterity, 
scarcely more for what he did in the cause of Reforma- 
tion, than for the spell which his name and fate threw 
around Luther, so his history itself is full of deepest 
and most tragical interest. In the long roll of martyrs 
there is hardly a victim whose fate awakens such 
unmingled admiration for the unflinching fortitude 
and constancy with which he adhered to what he 
deemed truth, and suffered for it ; or which inspires 
such vivid, and, indeed, exquisitely painful sympathy, 
as we read the story. Exposed, single-handed, to the 
concentrated enmity of the whole Roman Church and 



94 The Story of John Huss. 

Hierarchy, as embodied in the cruel Council of 
Constance, — to Pope and Cardinals, Emperor and 
Princes ; feeling that the whole might of prescription, 
both of the present and the past, was against him ; 
doubtless often tempted to ask himself, as Luther 
sometimes did, and as Huss was still more likely to 
do in that earlier and darker age, " whether it was 
possible that he alone should be right, and all the rest 
of the world wrong ;" troubled with those tremors of 
heart which such a possibility could not but awaken, 
he yet held on his way — though darker and darker at 
every step — undaunted. Such was the mastery of 
truth over him, so gloriously imperious was conscience, 
so profound his reverence for Scripture, so resolute 
was he, like Luther, to yield obedience to that alone, 
that he was proof alike against injury and ignominy, 
insult and flattery, promises and threats, and at last 
sealed his testimony by enduring death in the most 
appalling of all shapes. This last proof of heroism, 
indeed, many men have given, both before and after 
him. But very few, if any, ever passed to martyrdom 
through such an ordeal of " cruel mockings " and 
wrongs, with so majestic a patience as he did. Huss 
before the Council of Constance is one of the sub- 
limest pictures in the whole gallery of history. 

It is not my intention to give a full account of his 

life; but a slight sketch of its principal events is 



The Story of John /fuss. 95 

necessary for comprehending the significance of the 
closing scenes of it. It will not occupy much space, 
for the records of his early years are unusually meagre. 

He was born about 1370, at Hassinetz, a village of 
Bohemia, not far from Prague. Huss is the Bohemian 
name for a " goose," and this more than once furnishes 
both Huss and his enemies with some rather clumsy 
pleasantry. It is hard to say whether he or they be 
more ponderously witty in availing themselves of it ; 
he for the enhancement of his humility, and they as a 
term of reproach. He was born of lowly but honest 
parents, who seem to have done all they could for his 
education. 

He was first sent to the school of his native village, 
and afterwards to another of somewhat higher order, 
in a neighbouring town. Even as a child he was 
noted for the acuteness and vigour of his intellect, 
and made good in his youth all the promise of his 
boyhood. He was sent to the University of Prague 
at an early age ; and in the dearth of authentic details, 
writers have garnished this event with some idle 
traditions. There is an absurd story, for example, 
which L'Enfant gravely relates from an old author, 
that "when his mother took him to Prague to enter 
him at the university, she took a goose and a cake 
with her as a present to the Rector, and that by chance 
the goose flew away, — an accident which the poor 
woman looked upon as an evil omen, and fell down 



96 The Story of John Huss. 

on her knees to recommend her son to the Divine 
Protection " (the tutelary " goose," we may suppose, 
having left its namesake), " and went on her way with 
great heaviness of heart, to think that half her oblation 
to the Rector was gone." 

" He lived in times," says the same historian, " that 
were very favourable to the improvement of his various 
talents," — a proposition which it is somewhat difficult 
to accede to, considering that the shadow of the 
" dark ages " still lay upon them, and the crepusculum 
of a better time was but just beginning to glimmer. 
But it may be conceded (and this is probably what is 
meant), that it was a period of literary and intellectual 
activity as compared with the preceding centuries ; and 
his proximity to Prague certainly insured Huss the 
advantages of one of the first universities in Europe. 

Of his academic career we know little or nothing, 
except that it was honourable and successful. Certain 
dates preserved in the ancient memoir of him, by an 
unknown author, prefixed to the folio edition of his 
works, inform us that in 1393 he became M.A. and 
B.D. ; three years after was ordained priest, and 
began to preach; in 1400 was appointed to that 
function in the chapel of Bethlehem, at Prague, where 
he became the favourite court preacher of Sophia, the 
Queen of Wenceslaus. In 1401, he was elected Dean 
of the Faculty of Divinity and Confessor to the 
Queen ; and some time after, Rector of the University. 



The Story of John Htiss. 97 

In 1405 he had already become famous for his 
sermons preached in his native tongue at Bethlehem, 
in which he insisted on forgotten evangelical verities, 
and inveighed energetically against the corruptions of 
the Church and the vices of the clergy. It was in- 
evitable that this should expose him to the hatred of 
the Church. He had been equally vehement, it is 
true, against the vices of the laity ; but King Wences- 
laus sarcastically told the clergy, it was only when he 
began to attack similar vices in the Church that they 
talked of his heresies. 

He also gave much offence to a large portion of the 
Bohemian clergy by the part he took in the great 
Papal Schism; strongly advocating the rejection of 
the claims of Gregory XII. 

But his " sermons " were not the only cause of the 
fierce hatred which followed him from this time to 
his death. There were other reasons for the odium 
attached to him, perhaps as potent, or nearly as 
potent, as any of his imputed religious errors, though 
they had nothing to do with religion. Enthusiastically 
beloved by a large portion of his countrymen, there 
was of course always a large part of the Romish 
Church, who, on account of his reforming propensi- 
ties, were bitterly opposed to him ; but, had he had 
no other enemies, and had it been possible for him to 
evade the summons to Constance, it is probable he 
might have remained as safe in Bohemia as Luther in 

H 



98 The Story of John Huss. 

Saxony under the protection of Frederick. Of course, 
he had the dominant church party out of Bohemia also 
against him ; but their hatred was greatly strengthened 
by the extraneous causes to which we have just 
adverted, and which it is necessary to bear in mind 
in order to understand his true position. The first is, 
the part he took in asserting, against the Germans, 
certain rights of his countrymen to a just share in the 
government of the University of Prague, and by which 
he exposed himself to the hatred of Germany. The 
remembrance of that quarrel, in which the Germans 
were worsted (and as they alleged, perhaps truly), 
through the instrumentality of Huss, inspired them 
with a lifelong hatred of him. Having such important 
results, the quarrel may justify a few words of expla- 
nation. 

The University of Prague was founded in the year 
1347, by the Emperor Charles IV. It was modelled 
on the statutes of the universities of chief note in 
Europe, as those of Paris and Bologna, where, in 
questions involving university honours and emolu- 
ments, three votes were given to the native, and one 
vote to the foreign, members. But as, during the 
infancy of the University of Prague, there was a much 
larger number of students from various parts of the 
Germanic Empire than from Bohemia, this propor- 
tion wa^ reversed. The consequence was that the 
university honours and rewards were almost mono- 



The Story of John Huss. 99 

polised by the Germans ; and, as the native students 
increased in numbers, this naturally occasioned much 
chagrin and discontent. They sought to redress this 
wrong, and were successful, — principally it is said 
through the efforts of Huss and Jerome of Prague. 
Huss admitted that the provisional management was 
reasonable enough, so long as the foreign element in 
the university was largely preponderant. But when 
that was no longer the case, he strenuously urged that 
the proportion of the votes should be reversed : "It 
is just," said he, " that we should have three votes, 
and that you Germans should be content with one." 
The Germans, however, as might be expected, were 
by no means " content." On the contrary, so exas- 
perated were they, that they agreed, should the 
alteration take place, they would leave the university 
en masse; and, it is further said, decreed that if any 
were obstinate enough to refuse taking a part in this 
exodus, he should expiate his guilt by the loss of two 
of his fingers ; a somewhat curious illustration of the 
poet's assertion, of the humanising effect of letters : 

1 c Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes 
Emollit mores nee sinit esse feros." 

It was a much better proof of the strength of national 
hatred. 

Be this as it may, the Germans (who doubtless 
thought, from their numbers, that their secession 
would leave the university as " frightful a solitude " as 



i oo The Story of John Huss. 

Tertullian says the Roman Empire would have been if 
all the Christians had gone out of it), took their de- 
parture. And if their numbers had been as great as 
some accounts make them, no doubt the vacuum would 
have been all but complete. But the figures generally 
given are clearly fabulous, as is indicated by the 
enormous differences in the accounts of different 
writers. As reported in E Enfant, one writer says the 
students were 44,000, which is about as probable as 
that there were at one time 30,000 students at Oxford. 
Another, a little more modestly, says 40,000 ; a third 
computes the roll at 36,000 ; a fourth comes down 
to 24,000 ; ^Eneas Sylvius reduces it to 5000, which 
Count Krasinski thinks may have been the truth, 
though he hardly assigns any sufficient reason for pre- 
ferring it to that of other writers who fixed it at 2000 ! 
In other words, we know little about the matter. 

The secession of the foreign students took place in 
1409, and led to the establishment of the University 
of Leipsic. 

The seceding Germans spread and kept alive 
among their countrymen, a vivid and lasting hatred 
of Huss, which formed an appreciable element in 
the grand total of enmities combined against him in 
the Council of Constance. 

There was probably also another adventitious cause 
of hostility to Huss. He was in philosophy a 
"Realist" Now though the disputes between the 



The Story of John Htiss. 101 

Realists and their opponents, the Nominalists, were 
equally unintelligible and interminable, and turned 
upon refinements of abstraction so extremely subtle 
that one would imagine they could never stir in the 
human bosom the faintest breath of passion, they had 
often roused the combatants on both sides to the most 
frenzied fury. Anything, indeed, may serve for that, 
The wind, impalpable though it be, can fan flames 
fast enough, Whatever men can wrangle about, be it 
the idlest phantasm of the most crazy dreamer, that 
they can also be angry and fight about ; and indeed 
often with an energy of passion in inverse proportion 
to the importance or clearness of the point in dispute, 
Accordingly, these two metaphysical sects often 
sought to decide by blows what they could not decide 
by reason : and shed blood and even sacrificed lives 
for the question, whether an abstract name (as man^ 
for example) represented any one man in particular, 
or man in general ! In short, they made more than 
one university of Europe a sort of metaphysical 
Donnybrook, where the combatants fought with 
about as intelligent understanding of what they were 
fighting for, and also with as much passion and 
obstinacy, as any Irish " factions " whatsoever. It has 
been surmised, therefore, that the fact that Huss was 
a Realist, and consequently hated by the opposite 
faction of the Nominalists, made him obnoxious to 
many of his judges at Constance. 



io2 The Story of John Huss. 

It is certainly not a little mournful, as well as 
curious, that in this and other cases, the fortunes of 
Truth and Humanity may often be imperilled by con- 
siderations which have nothing in the world to do 
with either the one or the other ; that a man like John 
Huss may be made a martyr for religion, in a great 
measure because national animosities have set two com- 
munities by the ears, and opposite sects are blindly 
engaged in a night-battle about an incomprehensible 
dogma of metaphysics.* 

Another fact, which undoubtedly had much more 
to do with his fate, as really exercising a powerful 
influence over his theological opinions and exposing 
him to a double measure of the rancour of Rome, was 
his attachment to the writings of Wickliffe. It is 
curious to think, that from the remote insular seclusion 
of our country went forth the influences which gave 
the chief impulse to the Bohemian Reformer. It 
makes good the quaint words of Fuller in his " Church 
History of England," when speaking of the post- 
humous dishonour done to Wickliffe's ashes :— " They 
were cast into the Swift, a neighbouring brook, run- 
ning hard by. Thus this brook hath conveyed his 
ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the 

* One subtle question, particularly respecting Transubstantia- 
tion, seems to have been designed to entrap Huss through his 
Realist creed. It challenged him to maintain, in a subtle di- 
lemma, the " Universal a parte Rei" and had like to have given 
him some trouble ! — ]OEnfa7it, vol. i. p. 324. 



The Story of John Huss. 103 

narrow seas, then into the Main Ocean. And thus 
the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, 
which now is dispersed all the world over.*' 

There was little chance, however, of any particle of 
his dust reaching the country of Huss by this route. 
in the lack of that " seaport on the coast of Bohemia," 
which Shakspeare has created there in spite of 
geography. But in truth it seemed as little likely that 
any portion of his doctrine should be conveyed thither. 
Yet so it was ; and by one of those familiar methods 
by which the Providence of God in the course of its 
ordinary working easily brings the strangest things 
to pass, and binds the most distant things together. 
Our Richard the Second's Queen was Anne of 
Bohemia, daughter of the Emperor Charles IV 
After her husband's death she returned to her native 
land, and some of her retinue took Wickliffe's writings 
with them. Further, it is said, certain Bohemians 
had sojourned for some time at Oxford, among whom 
was Jerome of Prague : while others add, that two 
English Lollards found their way to Prague, and were 
entertained for some time at the house of John Huss. 
who thus got to know the works of Wickliffe. How- 
ever that may be, and whatever the mode, it is certain 
that he became well acquainted with several of those 
works, and that they produced a strong effect on his 
opinions. At his chapel of Bethlehem, he often spoke 
in terms of eulogy of the great English Reformer, and 



104 The Story of John Htcss. 

prayed that when he died his soul might be with that 
of WicklifTe, wheresoever that might be ! 

There is a tradition that the two English disciples 
of WicklifTe asked Huss to allow them to paint the 
hall of his house, and that on his granting the request 
they depicted, on one side, Christ's lowly entry into 
Jerusalem, and on the other, in strong contrast with it, 
a splendid procession of the Pope and his cardinals, 
in all the pomp and glitter of pontifical pageantry. 
It is said these pictures excited much curiosity ; that 
many came to see them, and went away divided in 
opinion about their propriety. But the generality of 
ecclesiastics understood the pictorial writing of these 
Wickliffite Mexicans too well, and, if we may trust 
report, the pictures created so much scandal that the 
Englishmen were compelled to quit Prague, 

Whatever the truth of these traditions, it is certain 
that WicklifTe's writings were extensively circulated at 
Prague at this time, as we shall presently see from the 
crusade of the Archbishop of Prague against them. 
Cochleus tells us that many of the " manuscripts were 
beautifully written and splendidly embossed and 
bound — bullis aitreis tegumentisque preciosis ornata" 
This not only shows the justice of Krasinski's remark, 
that they had been in the possession of wealthy and 
therefore influential persons ; it also shows how great 
value was put upon jewels which were enshrined in 
such costly caskets. Several of the Reformer's 



The Story of John Htiss. 105 

writings Huss himself translated into his native tongue, 
and took measures to circulate them widely in 
Bohemia and Moravia. 

By such proceedings, and especially by his bold 
invectives against the enormous corruptions of the 
Church, Huss had created a considerable party 
throughout Bohemia intensely zealous for a Reforma- 
tion, and disposed to accept him as their leader ; not 
a little influenced, doubtless, by the fact that he had 
been the champion of their national rights in the great 
University quarrel, a circumstance which, though it 
might operate against him out of Bohemia, vastly 
strengthened his position within it. 

And now things were ripe for a conflict between 
Huss and the Church. In 1410 the Archbishop of 
Prague obtained a bull from the Pope (Alexander V.), 
authorising him to extirpate heresy in Bohemia, and 
as a means to that end, to burn the writings of 
Wickliffe wherever they could be found, and to pro- 
hibit preaching except in certain specified buildings, 
from which " chapels" were excluded, and therefore 
(which was €oubtless the real object), the chapel of 
Bethlehem, where Huss preached. After much oppo- 
sition to the bull, it was at last proclaimed. 

On March 9th, 141 o, Huss was cited before the 
Archbishop's Court on the charge of heresy. When 
he, and others similarly accused of possessing portions 
of the writings of Wickliffe, asked the Archbishop 



106 The Story of John Huss. 

what part of the Reformer's writings were heretical ? 
they were told that " ail the writings of that arch- 
heretic were heretical," and accordingly the Arch- 
bishop burnt them wherever he could lay hands on 
them. At the same time he forbade all preaching in 
" chapels," and thus gagged Huss. The University 
of Prague protested, but for the present protested in 
vain, against the violent measures of the Archbishop. 

The ferment spread throughout Bohemia, and the 
country was divided into two great parties, which in 
many places threatened, and indeed broke, the public 
peace. This led to a series of struggles between 
King Wenceslaus and the refractory Archbishop, into 
which we have not space to enter, but which are 
amongst not the least memorable or instructive of the 
contests between the temporal and the spiritual 
powers during the middle ages. We can only notice 
them so far as they severally bear on the fate of Huss. 
The King, indolent and addicted to pleasure, would 
have cared, it is said, very little about the dispute, if 
the disputants would but have left him alone ; but if 
it went on to civil war, he felt that he could not be 
left alone. Huss also was a favourite with his Queen, 
and to a certain extent with himself. He ordered the 
Archbishop to indemnify the folks whose books he had 
so summarily burnt. The prelate refused; and his 
estates were sequestrated. 

Soon after, a papal embassy arrived at Prague to 



The Story of John Httss. 107 

announce the election of the infamous John XXIII., 
afterwards deposed by the Council of Constance. The 
King thought it was a good opportunity to endeavour 
to obtain the repeal of the "bull " of John's predeces- 
sor, and to secure the restitution of the privileges of 
the chapel of Bethlehem. But the astute Archbishop 
sent back, with the embassy, emissaries of his own, 
who defeated the King's object. They procured the 
Pope's sanction of the Archbishop's proceedings, and 
a citation for Huss to appear at Rome to plead to the 
charges of heresy against him. The King, declaring 
that Huss could not go " without peril of his life," 
which no doubt the Pope and Archbishop knew as 
well as he, or even better, refused to let him go. 
The Pope rejoined that the appearance of Huss was 
indispensable, and that the judges to try his cause 
were already appointed. In short, the banquet was 
all prepared, and the Pope seemed to say, " Come, 
for all things are now ready." Thus backed by the 
papal authority, the Archbishop reiterated the excom- 
munication of Huss, and claimed that his own estates 
should be restored ; the King would not comply with 
the last, and many of the clergy refused to read out 
the first. Higher and higher soared hawk and falcon, 
in the hope to gain a vantage point for striking. The 
Archbishop, nothing daunted, laid the terrors of 
interdict on Prague. The King retorted by measures 
equally vigorous, banished many of the clergy who 



108 The Story of John Huss. 

had been conspicuously busy in the execution of the 
Archbishop's orders ; seized (worse heresy than all !) 
the treasures of the Chapter of Prague, and made the 
Estates of the Realm pass a law by which it was 
forbidden to carry certain causes before the eccle- 
siastical courts. These measures of retaliation 
touched what was more precious than doctrine, and 
finished for the present the contest between the 
temporal and spiritual powers ; in which the victory 
lay with the former. The Archbishop agreed to sub- 
mit the controversy to a court of arbitration, which, 
on 3rd of July, 141 1, decided that the Archbishop 
was " to submit to the King, to revoke his interdict, 
to cancel the proceedings he had commenced against 
heresy, and to send to Rome a declaration that in 
Bohemia there was no heresy." On the other hand, 
if the Archbishop complied, the King was to restore 
his estates, and was to bind himself to punish all 
heresies, — an easy task, since the Archbishop was to 
declare at the same time that in Bohemia there were 
none ! And so ended this notable passage of arms 
between the King and his refractory priest. 

As the most illustrious of the successors of John 
Huss (who really achieved in the cause of Reformation 
what Huss only attempted, and far more) miracu- 
lously escaped martyrdom, so it is not a little remark- 
able that Huss's most illustrious predecessor, Wick- 



The Story of John Huss. 109 

liffe, also escaped it. Both he and Luther died in 
their beds, contrary to all human probability. And so 
perhaps might Huss, could he have remained in 
Bohemia, amidst the tens of thousands who loved, and 
were ever ready to rally round him. He refused, like 
Luther and Wickliffe, to obey the citation to appear at 
Rome ; no doubt feeling, as they did, that it was not 
"good for the health" of a Reformer to go there. 
Instinct told them that, go where they might, to 
London, or Constance, or Worms, they had better not 
repair to Rome. Perhaps they felt like the fox in the 
fable, who declined the invitation to the lion's den, 
inasmuch as he had observed that the only footsteps 
in its vicinity were towards it, and none from it : nulla 
vestigia retrorsum. If Huss could, in like manner, 
have escaped the invitation to Constance,— if he had 
not severed himself from the multitudes of zealous and 
faithful friends among his compatriots, — he might have 
remained as safe in their protection as Luther under 
that of the Elector of Saxony. Luther indeed ran 
great risks in going to Worms, but still it was within 
the "fatherland," and he was surrounded by "troops 
of friends," not to repeat that the very name and fate 
of Huss probably proved a shield. 

Huss has been sometimes blamed for his rashness 
in going to Constance. But, as L'Enfant has shown 
in his History of the Council, he had little choice in 
the ^matter. "When he refused to go to Rome, he 



1 10 The Story of John /fuss. 

appealed to a general Council, and pledged himself to 
appear before it and abide by it ; he went not only 
with the consent of the King of Bohemia, but by his 
command ; and, though like Luther on the way to 
Worms, he was not without forebodings and mis- 
givings, he yet seemed to be amply fortified by the 
imperial safe-conduct with which he was to be 
furnished. Perhaps we may also say, with Wadding- 
ton, that he felt not only an " intense conviction of 
the truth of his doctrines," but confidence also " in the 
integrity of the Council." He certainly seems to have 
hoped that he might at least be able to disabuse it of 
its impressions against him, and to reply satisfactorily 
to the charge of heresy. But though hoping the best, 
he was prepared for the worst, as is seen in that almost 
prophetic letter of farewell to his friends, written jus* 
before his departure for Constance, in which he 
touchingly and forebodingly says, " Perhaps you will 
never see me at Prague any more." 

It was on the nth of October, 1414, that Huss 
commenced his journey to Constance : all through 
Bohemia, as was to be expected, his progress was a 
series of ovations. Nor was he unfavourably received 
even in Germany itself. At Nuremburg especially, the 
most flattering attentions were paid him, and he was 
conducted into the town by a vast concourse of 
people. He arrived at Constance, November 2nd, 
1 414. He was still without his safe-conduct; but it 



The Story of John Huss. 1 1 1 

came the next day, and was delivered by one of the 
three Bohemian nobles to whose care King Wenceslaus 
had committed him. It was couched in the most 
absolute and unequivocal terms.* No sooner had he 
arrived in Constance than those intrigues and machi- 
nations began which had his destruction for their 
object, and which were too fatally successful. His 
enemies, many of them from the party opposed to him 
in Bohemia, inflamed the minds of the people, spread 
abroad all sorts of accusations (most of them wholly 
false), and brought such pressure to bear on the 
Cardinals — only too willing doubtless to be pressed — 
that they "promised he should never be set at 
liberty." His friend, John de Chlum, was summoned 
to surrender Huss. That noble Bohemian, indignant 
at this flagrant attempt to elude or infringe the safe- 
conduct, appealed to the Pope. The Pope was very 
polite ; declared he had nothing to say against Huss, 
but that he could not control the Cardinals. De 
Chlum showed the safe-conduct to all the German 

* It may be seen at large in L'Enfant, vol. i., p. 61. One 
sentence will suffice : 

"Whom we have taken into our protection and safeguard, 
and into that of the empire, desiring you, when he comes among 
you, to receive him well and entertain him kindly, furnishing 
him with all necessaries for his despatch and security, whether 
he goes by land or water, without taking anything either from 
him or his, at coming in or going out, for any sort of duties 
whatsoever ; and to let him freely and securely pass, sojourn, 
stop, and repass, for the honour and respect of His Imperial 
Majesty." 



H2 The Story of John Huss. 

princes, and to the magistrates of Constance, but with- 
out effect. John Huss was put under arrest, and after 
being confined for a week in the house of one of the 
Canons of Constance, was consigned on the 6th of 
December to a dungeon under ground in the Domini- 
can convent. On the news of his imprisonment, the 
Emperor, still capable of shame at being compelled to 
palter with his word, and at the insolence of the 
lieges who thus set his commands at nought, ordered 
his instant release. The Council paid no more atten- 
tion to the order than to the expostulations of John 
de Chlum. On his arrival at Constance, finding he 
had not been obeyed, he threatened to leave the 
Council to itself, and actually set forth. Some of the 
Cardinals rode after him, overtook him, and to his 
own eternal shame so successfully plied him with their 
diabolical casuistry, — the chief articles of which were 
"That a General Council could deal with a heretic at 
its pleasure," and that " No man was bound to keep 
faith with heretics," — that they persuaded him, 
January ist, 1415, to seal his infamy by giving his 
consent that the Council should take its course without 
impediment from him. 

Forty-four articles of accusation, all charging Huss 
with teaching doctrines contrary to those of the 
Church, were presented. The greater part of these he 
clearly showed were false \ others, misrepresentations 
or exaggerations of his real opinions ; and that the 



TIic Story of John Huss. 113 

rest were not heresies at all, inasmuch as they had 
never been condemned by Pope or General Council, 
and were in harmony both with Scripture and reason. 
But there was one heresy of heresies of which Huss 
was guilty, which would have made orthodoxy itself 
heterodox. He did not acknowledge the Pope and 
the Cardinals, even with the Council to boot, to 
constitute the Church ; and like Luther in the next 
century, appealed to the Scripture as the ultimate and 
supreme authority in matters of faith. He accordingly 
refused throughout the entire struggle to abandon any 
opinion unless he was confronted by arguments drawn 
from Holy Writ. There is no doubt that while he 
held many opinions and practices opposed to the 
current superstitions, his chief offence was the un- 
sparing and bitter invectives which he had fulminated 
from the pulpit of Bethlehem and elsewhere, agains t 
the corruptions of the Church, and the vices of the 
Clergy. While they talked of heresy, this was in 
truth his real heresy. 

Unconditional submission to the decisions of the 
Council was demanded of Huss, whether he believed 
them true or not. A curious, and almost incredible. 
instance of the implicit faith sometimes demanded of 
the individual conscience in those days is given in one 
of the letters of Huss, wherein he mentions among 
many other visits made to him in prison, with the view 
of entrapping, cajoling, or terrifying him into sub- 

1 



1 1 4 The Story of John Huss. 

mission, that of a " certain doctor " who tried his 
rhetoric on this wise : " He told me," says Huss, 
"that, whatever I did, I ought to submit to the 
Council ; and added, ' If the Council were to say that 
you have only one eye, while in fact you have two, 
you ought to confess with the Council that so the 
matter is.' To whom I said, ' Even if the whole world 
should tell me so, as long as I have my senses, I could 
not say this without doing violence to my conscience.' 
And after some more talk, he gave up the point, and 
acknowledged that he had not given a very good 
illustration." 

On his arrest, he had demanded " the privilege of 
a public advocate," — aid the more necessary, as his 
bodily infirmities, cruelly aggravated by his imprison- 
ment, made him very unequal to the task imposed 
upon him. This most reasonable demand was re- 
fused. A strong disposition was also evinced to de- 
prive him altogether of the advantage of a public trial, 
but this was found to be more than even the iniquity 
of the Council could compass. 

Huss was brought before the Council three times ; 
namely, on the 5th, 7th, and 8th of June, 1415, and 
was each time treated with the grossest injustice 
and cruelty. On the first occasion, the MS. of his 
treatise on the " Church " was presented to him, and 
he was asked whether the opinions contained in it 
were his ? Huss avowed them, and his readiness to 



The Story of John Huss. 115 

defend them ; but also his readiness to retract every- 
thing which should be proved contrary to Scripture. 
Here he distinctly anticipates the Lutheran dilemma 
propounded at Worms. He was met by the no doubt 
sincere outcry, that the question was not what the 
Scriptures said, but whether he would retract doctrines 
which the Church, as represented by the Council, 
declared to be erroneous. Huss then began to make 
a confession of his faith. His confession was not 
wanted, he was told ; but simply that he should 
answer to the questions put to him, of which, however, 
that one question just mentioned, was the principal, 
and admitted of but one answer. He attempted once 
more to enter upon an explanation and defence of his 
opinions, but was met with rude shouts of derision ; 
and the tumult became so great that Huss was com- 
pelled to say (and it was the only thing like rebuke 
which all his wrongs extorted from him), that " he 
had expected more courtesy and moderation from 
such an assembly." Nevertheless, he defended him- 
self with so much address that he demolished the first 
charge against him. But fighting thus single-handed 
(for, as already said, he had been denied an advocate), 
and in so mortal a straggle, it is no wonder that his 
strength failed; he was conducted, exhausted and 
fainting, to his prison. One day of respite was 
granted to him, when he was again to be brought 
into the arena like the early martyrs, to face "the 



1 1 6 The Story of John Huss. 

lions," or as St. Paul might have said, "to fight with 
wild beasts at Ephesus," if indeed " lions " and " wild 
beasts " will pardon the injustice done them by so 
degrading a comparison. 

On the 7th he was accused of holding opinions 
contrary to the doctrine of Transubstantiation, that 
old and approved test of orthodoxy, and man-trap for 
catching heretics ; that grim Moloch of superstition, 
which brought more of the Reformers to the stake 
than all their other heterodoxies put together. Huss 
easily refuted this charge, as in fact he never dreamed 
of questioning this doctrine, any more than did Luther 
when he began to preach against Indulgences. Other 
charges were brought forward, of which Huss de- 
manded the proof. Instead of giving it, the Council 
pressed him with the only alternative, — absolute 
submission to its decrees. On this day, the Emperor 
Sigismund consummated his own shame, by declaring 
that though he had granted Huss a safe-conduct, yet 
being now informed by the Fathers of the Council 
that such a document given to a heretic was, ipso 
facto, null and void, he would no longer charge him- 
' self with his safety. Well might Huss say with David 
and with Strafford, " Put not your trust in princes." 
From that moment he saw his fate ; but with that same 
beautiful patience for which he was distinguished, he 
began to express his thanks to the Emperor for the 
protection that had hitherto been granted him. 



The Story of John Huss. 1 1 7 

The last and final hearing, was on June the 8th. 
The charges were now more specially those on which 
(as already said) his " heresies " really depended ; 
namely, the opinions he had so often expressed at 
Prague, touching the Pope and Cardinals, and the 
invectives in which he had indulged against the vices 
of the Clergy. He could not deny these charges, and 
if these could make him guilty, he could not deny his 
guilt. He might indeed have been wrung to apologise 
for occasional needless intemperance of language, but 
he could not admit that his allegations were false. 
The one alternative was once more put before him, 
of unconditional submission to the Council, or to be 
condemned as a heretic. He in vain implored once 
more that he might enter into a full exposition of his 
opinions. He was told that he must retract and 
abjure the doctrines contained in the forty-four articles, 
and swear to believe and teach the contrary. Huss 
then gave the noble answer, "that he could not 
abjure those doctrines which he had never affirmed, 
and as to others which he had, he would not deny 
the truth against his conscience, until their falsehood 
was clearly proved to him." Here again he was , 
pleading, as Luther pleaded, that nothing can justify 
a man's saying anything against his conscience. 

In vain he was admonished ; in vain all sorts of 
menace and blandishment were exhausted upon him 
in turn. He was inflexible ; his truly adamantine 



1 1 8 The Story of John Huss, 

temper would neither bend nor break. He was taken 
back to his prison, and as he left the Council, told 
them, " God must judge between him and them." 

At this last appearance before the Council, finding 
himself browbeaten and bullied on all hands, and 
utterly hopeless of obtaining a hearing in reply to the 
charges made against him, Huss at last contented 
himself with reiterating what he had on a previous 
occasion urged, "a solemn appeal to Christ against 
the Council." This of course moved only the scorn 
and derision of this Christian assembly ; on which he 
renewed and justified it. " Behold," he said, " O 
Christ, how thy Council condemns what Thou hast 
prescribed and practised. Yes," he continued, turn- 
ing to the Council, " I have maintained, and still 
maintain, that there can be no surer appeal than to 
Jesus Christ ; for He can be neither corrupted by 
bribes, nor deceived by false witnesses, nor cozened 
by any artifice." 

He remained yet a month in his dungeon, and 
during that time various formulae of abjuration were 
proposed to him. Several Cardinals visited him, and 
plied him with promises and threats by turns. It was 
still in vain, and on the ist of July Huss sent to the 
Council his final resolution, that he neither could nor 
would abjure any of his opinions until his errors were 
demonstrated from the Scriptures. His execution 
was fixed for the 6th of July. But before that hour 



The Story of John Huss. 1 1 9 

arrived one other trial, prolonged and ignominious 
almost beyond example, awaited him ; for every in- 
gredient that could add bitterness to that cup was 
infused into it. We allude to the public ceremony of 
his formal degradation. It is not possible to read 
the account of that scene without wondering at the 
majestic patience of the man, or without horror and 
indignation against the perpetrators of the iniquity, 
and at the system which made such things possible. 
The only thing that at all mitigates the feeling is 
contempt for many of the childish forms of spiteful 
mummery in which their malice embodied itself. He 
was commanded to assume the priestly vestments ; he 
obeyed. He then ascended a lofty scaffold, prepared 
for the occasion, and made that remarkable and noble 
confession to the people : " The Bishops bid me con- 
fess that I am in error. If I could comply, with only 
the loss of the honour of a mortal man, they might 
perhaps have persuaded me to yield to them. But 
I stand here, face to face with Almighty God, and I 
cannot do this without dishonour to Him or without 
the stings of my own conscience. . . . How could I 
lift my eyes to Heaven, how face those whom I have 
taught, if I were thus to act ? . Am I to cast into 
doubt so many souls by my example ?" 

He was interrupted, and commanded to descend 
from the scaffold. The several priestly vestments 
were then successively taken from him by as many 



i2o The Story of John Huss. 

bishops, each of whom, as he took his part of the holy 
finery (too holy for John Huss to wear), addressed 
the poor victim by some too .characteristic speech of 
orthodox irony or malice. The one who took the 
cjialice from him out-heroded the rest : " O thou 
accursed Judas," said he, "because thou hast aban- 
doned the council of peace, and conspired with the 
Jews, we take from thee this cup of salvation." Huss 
undauntedly replied, " But I trust in God the Father 
of all, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, for whose name's 
sake I am suffering all these things, that He will not 
take from me the cup of His salvation. On the 
contrary, I have a firm persuasion that I shall drink 
it to-day in His kingdom." At length came the 
obliteration of the tonsurq, and how to manage this, — ^ 
that is (as one may say), to shave a man already 
shaved, or rather to unshave him, — not a little puzzled 
these sacerdotal barbers. One proposed this, and 
another that. Huss quietly said to the Emperor^ 
" Strange, that though they are all equally cruel, they 
cannot agree even in their cruelty !" At last they 
decided (it is said, but it is to be hoped falsely), to 
cut with scissors a portion of the scalp. They had 
now, as they deemed, deprived him of all ecclesiastic 
symbols of honour and privilege, and nothing re- 
mained but to hand him over to the secular arm ; but 
their childish spite suddenly recollected that one thing 
was still wanting. A large paper cap, painted with 



The Story of John Httss. 1 2 1 

grotesque figures of devils, and inscribed with the 
word "ILeresiarcha," was placed on his head. When 
Huss saw it he said, " Our Lord wore a crown of 
thorns for my sake, why should not I wear this light, 
though ignominious cap for His?" The bishops in 
putting it on said, " We deliver thy body to the 
flames, and thy soul to the devil." Huss, lifting his 
eyes, replied, " Into thy hands, O Jesus Christ, I 
commend my soul which thou hast redeemed." 

After this, he was led to the place of execution, just 
beyond the gate of Gottlieben, where carcases were 
usually flayed, and where much carrion had been 
recently strewn about, in order to add to the igno- 
miny of the punishment. On his way, Huss had seen 
his more immortal part, — his books, — already burning. 
It only moved a smile, perhaps, at the childishness, 
perhaps at the futility, of the malice of his enemies. 
On arriving at the pile, his countenance, we are told, 
lighted up with animation. With a loud and clear 
voice he recited the 31st, and 81st Psalms, and 
prayed for some time. After one more vain attempt 
to extract a retractation from him, the fire was lighted. 
The fuel had only been piled up to his knees, and 
when burnt down, the upper part of his body was 
found unconsumed, and hanging to the stake by the 
chain ; the flames were again kindled, and the heart 
of the refractory heretic having been torn from his 
body, and beaten and broken with clubs, was sepa- 



122 The Story of John Huss. 

rately burnt. But happily, of this supplementary 
martyrdom, Huss knew nothing. He seems to have 
been suffocated, rather than burnt, shortly after the 
fire was kindled, and just after he had uttered with a 
loud voice his last words, " Jesus Christ, Son of the 
Living God, have mercy on me !" 

The ashes were carefully collected and cast into the 
Rhine, whence (as Fuller said of those of Wickliffe, 
cast into the Avon) they have been carried into the 
" main ocean," and so are an " emblem of his doc- 
trine, diffused throughout the world." 

As the voluminous annals of martyrdom scarcely 
present us with any scene that reminds us more 
strongly of our blessed Lord in the hall of Pilate and 
amidst the soldiers of Herod : so, there is none in 
which the example of the great Master has been more 
perfectly copied by the disciple. The patience, 
dignity, and fortitude of a Christian were marvel- 
lously displayed in the whole deportment of the 
martyr. He " partook of the sufferings of Christ," 
and u the glory of Christ rested on him." It was 
something wonderful, that, as he was of too high and 
hardy a spirit to quail under the accumulated wrongs 
and cruelties of his persecutors, this very spirit did 
not betray him into momentary passion or irritation : 
that after being so fiercely chased he did not at last 
turn on the hunters, and resent, with unseemly de- 
fiance, the insufferable indignities heaped upon him. 



The Story of John /fuss. 123 

Luther would certainly have raged like a lion in the 
toils ; Huss was led as " a lamb to the slaughter." 

But this is only half his praise ; he was inflexible 
as he was gentle. Neither the open violence of the 
Council, nor the artful interrogatories with which he 
was plied in prison ; neither threats and intimidations, 
nor promises and cajolery; nor, what was hardest to 
resist of all, the earnest importunities of friendly 
voices, could warp his steadfast spirit. And this in- 
flexibility, conjoined with such meekness and patience, 
stamp the character and conduct of Huss with a 
moral sublimity which the world has rarely seen 
paralleled. Even the page of L' Enfant, the copious 
chronicler of the Council of Constance, one of the 
most honest and laborious, but also one of the dullest, 
of historians, lights up with a glimmer of animation, 
and is ruffled with something like energy and pathos, 
when he comes to depict the closing scenes of the 
life of the great Bohemian Reformer.* 

* One of the most touching and noble appeals made to the 
Reformer is that of John de Chlum ; an appeal which, though it 
must have cost Huss a pang to part with such a friend, must 
have sounded in his ears, had he needed such a stimulus, like a 
trumpet. When every hope was lost, and De Chlum was about 
to separate from the martyr for the last time, he addressed him in 
these words : — 

"My beloved Master, — I am unlettered, and consequently 
unfit to counsel one so enlightened as you. Nevertheless, if you 
are secretly conscious of any one of those errors which have been 
publicly imputed to you, I do entreat you not to feel any shame 
in retracting it ; but if, on the contrary, you are convinced of 



124 The Story of John Htiss. 

Thus perished this man, after as terrible and pro- 
longed a fight with the " principalities, and powers of 
this world," close leagued with those of " darkness," 
as ever was fought by martyr or confessor ; — the more 
terrible that it was fought by him singlehanded, for he 
was the first of the long and illustrious procession of 
martyrs of Reformation who were destined, with " the 
unresistable might of weakness" (as Milton has it), 
" to shake the Powers of Darkness, and scorn the fiery 
rage of the Old Red Dragon." Huss trod his dark 
path alone, unsupported by the example of that 
" cloud of witnesses" which gave courage to his suc- 
cessors : by himself was he to hush the doubts which 
could not but assail any man who undertook to assert 
his opinions against the voice of all prescription, armed 
with all power \ and this, too, amidst imprisonment, 
sickness, " cruel mockings," and every form of wrong^ 
He drank the cup of martyrdom drop by drop, with 
every conceivable ingredient of bitterness in it ; and 
the entire tragedy involved, in all probability, a sum of 
suffering of which, after all, the last brief fiery agony 
was the least part. To the deep shadows which often 



your innocence, I am so far from advising you to say anything 
against your conscience, that I exhort you rather to endure every 
form of torture than to renounce anything that you hold to be 
true." Huss replied with tears, that God was his witness, how 
ready he had ever been, and still was, to retract on oath, and 
with his whole heart, from the moment he should be convicted 
of any error by evidence from Holy Scripture, 



The Story of John Huss. 125 

rested on his soul, amidst his prison solitude, there are 
some touching allusions in his letters ; he there speaks 
of the dark forebodings which troubled him, and of 
the terrible dreams which sometimes haunted his 
sleep.* 

As we read the tragic story, it is impossible not to 
feel our indignation kindle against the corrupt Church 
which burned him, or refrain from murmuring with 
those souls beneath the altar, " How long, O Lord, how 
long ?" 

While it is true that John Huss was a pioneer of the 
Reformation, it is also true that the Reformation he 
sought was not of doctrine so much as of morals and 
of government. He pleaded, quite justly, that he was 
not guilty of the heresies of which his enemies accused 
him : he was, as already said, burned for very different 
reasons. He was orthodox on transubstantiation, 
believed in the intercession of saints, worshipped the 
Virgin Mother, had no doubts about purgatory and 
prayers for the dead ; and, though he thought the cup 
ought to be given to the laity, did not make even that 
(which was the bond and characteristic symbol of his 
followers) an essential point. In inveighing against 
the monstrous evils of the great Schism, against the 

* Especially in letters xxiii., xxxii., Huss, Oper. In one, he 
speaks of a dream in which frightful serpents seemed to be 
crawling about him. 



126 The Story of John Huss. 

corruptions in the government of the Church, and the 
vices of her ministers, he had done little more than 
many others both before him and after him. Nay, at 
Constance itself almost equal freedom was used. But, 
as Waddington justly observes, the offence of Huss 
consisted in this — that he appealed to the " Bible," 
rather than the " Church ;" that the Bible, not the 
Church, was the source of his reforming zeal. It would 
have been well if the Reformation that Huss contem- 
plated had included dogma; for there could be no 
effectual reformation without it. Hence chiefly it was 
that Luther's was more durable and efficacious. Both 
reformers had their eyes first opened by those moral 
enormities which most readily struck the sense, and 
which were the ne plus ultra of the recession of the 
Church from Christian truth. Both spoke with almost 
equal vehemence against false miracles, indulgences, 
and the vices of the clergy. But Luther looked further, 
and saw deeper; and attacked, one after another, 
those corruptions of doctrine which were the secret 
roots of the evils in practice. And hence we may see 
how little force there is in the modern and too favourite 
notion, that dogma is of little or no consequence, or 
that one set of dogmas is nearly as good as another ! 
Looking at men in general, as are their convictions 
(supposing these firm and sincere), such also will be 
their life, whether good or evil. The superstition 
which buries truth, and the scepticism which doubts 



The Story of John Httss. 127 

whether there be any, are in the end almost equally 
pernicious to the morals of mankind ; both alike tend 
to repress all that is noble and magnanimous in our 
nature. What we find true in politics, is certainly not 
less true in theology ; and we all know what sort of 
patriot and statesman he is likely to prove who believes 
that it matters not what party-badge he wears or what 
political creed he professes; who doubts whether it 
be not wisest to let the world jog on as it will, and to 
acquiesce in any time-honoured abuse or inveterate 
corruption which it will give trouble and involve sacri- 
fice to extirpate. But there is this difference in the 
two cases, that the world will tolerate in theology 
the character which it is too astute not to abhor in 
politics. 

It is in vain, however, to blame Huss for not going 
deeper or further. He lived a century before Luther ; 
and neither he nor his contemporaries were prepared 
in the fifteenth century to receive or act upon views 
which were feasible only in the sixteenth. But to this 
high praise he is unquestionably entitled, that he 
asserted the very same maxim on which Luther justified 
his resistance at Worms ; — the absolute supremacy of 
conscience, unless its errors be demonstrated by clear 
proof from what both of them affirmed to be alone the 
ultimate authority in matters of faith, — the Scripture. 
Though much more than this is required for a full and 
consistent system of religious liberty, it was a large 



128 The Story of John Huss, 

instalment of it ; and for vindicating so much of the 
great charter of the " Rights of Conscience," and 
ratifying it with a martyr's seal, John Huss is entitled 
to be held in lasting and grateful remembrance. 

It has been seen that Huss really penetrated very 
imperfectly into the evils of Popery. By some, how- 
ever, the contrary would seem to be assumed ; for he 
has been represented, not only as the precursor but the 
prophet of the German Reformation ; and an appeal 
has been made to certain medals (supposed to have 
been struck contemporaneously with his death, or 
shortly after it), inscribed with a prediction that " after 
a hundred years his oppressors should answer to God 
and to him — Centum revolutis annis Deo respondebitis 
et tnihi" 

L'Enfant has examined this matter with his usual 
fulness and fairness, and shown that there is no ground 
for supposing these medals to be anterior to the 
Lutheran Reformation, and that there is nothing in 
any of the acknowledged remains of Huss, to indicate 
that he pretended to anything more than merely mortal 
presages as to the future of the papacy. It is true 
there are expressions which show that he felt convinced 
that the evils of the Church were so enormous that a 
time of Reformation must soon come ; that a tree so 
rotten must fall. But they only prove that he saw 
what many a mind between Huss and Luther saw as 
clearly. Nor is it possible to read the many satires on 



The Story of John Huss. 129 

the clergy, current and popular during the middle 
ages, without being convinced that those who wrote 
and read them must have divined that a system, the 
corruptions of which were so notorious, so odious, and 
so 7'idiculed, could not be very long maintained. It 
was a probability on which any mind of more than 
moderate perspicacity might safely speculate ; just as 
we may now confidently predict from the present 
symptoms and position of the Papacy, that it will, 
within a very short time, perhaps in a few brief years, 
be the subject of startling revolutions. There it stands, 
an anachronism in the world's history ; with all its 
errors stereotyped ; stationaiy amidst progress, and 
immutable amidst change ; showing in the late En- 
cyclical* that it does not in the slightest degree recede 
from aspirations and pretensions to which it is im- 
possible to give effect ; regarding all that passes around 
it with a smile of senile madness ; the patron still, so 
far as it can or dare act upon them, of the very princi- 
ples which led it to persecute Huss and Luther : the 
lion still, but an old lion, with teeth broken and claws 
pared ; with the worst possible government of his own, 
and acting as a universal obstructive (wheresoever it 
has unchecked influence) to the progress of enlighten- 
ment and freedom ; giving the world infinite plague, 
and occasioning perpetual difficulty ana w T orry to 
Europe; with its subject nations more and more 

* 1864. 

K 



130 The Story of John Htiss. 

divided as to the extent of their allegiance, and as to 
the measure of the faith to be reposed in its Decrees. 
On the other hand, it is nearly deserted by the 
secular supports which have so long upheld it, and 
is challenged to try whether it can keep itself from 
tumbling down. If the French Emperor had studied, 
for ten years together, how to involve it in difficulties, 
and perhaps Europe with it, he could not have 
thought of anything better than his somewhat enig- 
matical " Convention." Whether fairly carried out 
with all its appendant conditions, or not, it offers 
almost equally perilous alternatives to Rome \ and 
it is impossible for any man not to presage — as Huss 
and Luther could in their day — that a time of startling 
change is at hand. 

If we could put faith in what most of us must always 
be very distrustful of, — the interpretation of unfulfilled 
prophecy, it would be difficult not to be startled by the 
singular coincidence that the time fixed by many inter- 
preters (and some of them lived long ago), for the 
denouement of the great papal drama synchronised, 
more or less exactly, with that fixed for carrying out 
the imperial Convention, namely, the year 1866 ; for 
surely it is not easy to imagine the Emperor 
Napoleon's having determined his policy by con- 
jectural interpretations of the Apocalypse ! It is very 
certain, not only that some recent interpreters have 
fixed on that year as being a significant epoch for the 



The St 07y of John Htiss. 1 3 1 

Papacy, but that Fleming, more than a hundred and 
fifty years ago, predicted that either 1848 or 1866, 
according as we read the prophetic year by the Julian 
calendar, or otherwise, would be thus significant. In 
point of fact, both periods (though "the end be not 
yet") have been of very great import to Rome, — the 
first as heralding the European Revolutions (and 
amongst them, that at Rome itself) which led to the 
occupation by the French ; and the second as signalised 
by the imperial Convention which is to terminate it. 
But, as just hinted, it is impossible not to distrust 
minute interpretations of unfulfilled prophecy. "While 
we may hold with Bishop Butler, that it is impossible for 
any man who calmly compares the history of the world 
with the prophetic pages of the Bible, not to be struck 
with the general conformity between them ; and while 
we may well believe that, as the scroll of the future 
is read by the light of events, that impression will 
be strongly corroborated, it is difficult to imagine, 
from the very nature of prophecy (addressed as it is 
to a world governed by moral laws, and yet predicting 
events which are to admit of no possibility of being 
either accelerated or frustrated), that it can be other- 
wise than conjecturally interpreted. He who would 
pry too closely into unfulfilled prophecy, is like the too 
curious Athenian, who wished to know " what it was 
that the philosopher was carrying concealed under his 
cloak?" "I carry it there," was the reply, ''for the 



132 The Story of John Huss. 

very purpose of concealing it." It is much the same 
with the enigmas of unfulfilled prophecy before the 
event gives us the key to them. And if we too im- 
portunately inquire as to the future, that may be said 
to us, which was said to those who asked the Saviour, 
"Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to 
Israel?" "It is not for you," said he, "to know the 
times or the seasons which the Father hath put in 
his own power." 

Meantime, it does not require any great sagacity to 
believe that startling changes are coming upon that 
wonderful fabric which it took so many centuries to 
compact, and has already taken so many to dis- 
integrate. 



^33 



SKETCH OF THE 
LATE SAMUEL FLETCHER. 

OF EROOMFIELD, NEAR MANCHESTER. 

"A merchant man seeking goodly pearls '."— 
Matth. xiii. 45. 

TFthe man who has bequeathed to hospitals or 
churches the hoards he could no longer use. 
deserves to be remembered, assuredly he ought not to 
be forgotten who, during his lifetime, has lavished as 
much on similar objects, though not in one lump. 
Indeed, the former has too often little claim to the 
gratitude of posterity \ for, could he have continued 
to enjoy his wealth, he would not have given it away. 
He gives it to the strong robber. Death, in no other 
sense than the traveller yields his purse to the high- 
wayman. In any case, he who gives to charity only 
on his deathbed, may be said (to use old Fuller's 
words) to be ,/; rather liberal of that which is another 
man's, than of his own /' he but gives what he cannot 
himself longer possess, and, by retaining it to the last 
moment, seems to show that he would have kept it to 



t 34 Samuel Fletcher. 

the period of Methuselah's longevity (or still longer) if 
he could. 

And even where there is no reason to doubt the 
charitable feelings and purposes of a man who gives 
with "the dead hand," it may still be said that he has 
not only deferred the good he might have done, and 
forgotten the maxim, " Bis dat qui cito dat," but 
robbed himself of one of the sweetest rewards and 
most pleasant spectacles that wait on benevolence, — 
the recompense of conscious self-sacrifice for the good 
of others, and the sight of the happiness it has 
conferred. 

Nor are these the only disadvantages of this mode 
of giving. No sympathy can be expressed by him 
who gives, no gratitude expressed by those who 
receive, the gifts of " the dead hand." They seem 
rather to fall from its involuntarily relaxing grasp than 
to be spontaneously surrendered. Those from the 
" living" hand are warmed with its life. They are 
accompanied with looks of love, and tones and tears 
of pity, scarcely less precious to the receivers than the 
gifts themselves. 

The contrast between the living John Howard, 
bending over the captives in the dungeon, with the 
soul of compassion in his eyes and on his lips, and the 
same John Howard in a marble effigy, shadows forth 
the difference between the " living " and the " dead " 
hand ; and if he who gives to charity what he can no 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 3 5 

longer enjoy, does well, he who gives it in his lifetime 
(supposing he can equally well afford it), does better. 

The late Samuel Fletcher, Esq., of Broomfield, near 
Manchester — one of the " merchant princes " of that 
great city — whose name can be strange to few of those 
who direct the great religious and philanthropic orga- 
nisations of our day, was one of those men whose 
delight it is to be their own almoners : and, certainly. 
if the preceding observations be correct, he has as 
strong claims to a niche in the memories of his 
countrymen as those who have made themselves 
conspicuous by leaving a splendid fortune to endow a 
hospital or a college, or by any similar act of a 
posthumous charity. It is well known to the writer of 
these pages that during his long and useful life, his 
benefactions, which through many years he sowed 
broadcast (with great judgment indeed, but with a 
most liberal hand), over the whole field of benevolent 
enterprise, amounted to little, if anything, short of a 
hundred thousand pounds. 

Many friends of this excellent man have expressed 
a wish that some sketch of him should be given to the 
public, not merely as a brief record of his worth, but 
as suggestive of some useful lessons. They have 
thought that the chief facts of his history and character 
may be a profitable study for many young men enter- 
ing mercantile life : especially in this day, when the 
successful merchant occupies a far more important 



1 3 6 Samuel Fletcher. 

position, and exercises a far larger influence on 
society, than ever before. It is true, indeed, that in 
every age and country, if his culture, his knowledge, 
and his \Vorth, keep pace with his wealth, and he 
knows how to use that wealth as an instrument of 
good, he is one of the most enviable of mortals : he 
possesses, if he has but the inclination to do good on 
a large scale, the power granted to few, of gratifying 
it. What most men can only wish he can execute. 
All that he has to do, is to " devise liberal things," and 
they are done. He resembles the skilled landscape 
gardener who not only has (to use a phrase of a 
certain writer on the picturesque) " the prophetic eye 
of taste," but can turn his ideal dreams into delightful 
realities.' And probably there never were so many 
men in this enviable position, in any age and country 
as in our own. 

It is from sharing the conviction that Mr. Fletcher's 
character may afford to many, but especially to the 
young merchant, a profitable theme of contemplation, 
that the following brief sketch has been written. If it 
were merely to blazon his name and virtues, one would 
hesitate : so alien was it from the nature of the man to 
court applause, so little did he " let his left hand know 
what his right hand did," that it might be questioned 
whether he would not prefer entire oblivion to any- 
thing like a public eulogy. But men owe it to them- 
selves not to forget those who deserve to be re- 



Sam uel Fletcher. 137 

membered; and, as it is not possible to flatter the 
vanity or insult the modesty of those who are gone, 
so, if their lives can furnish inviting examples to those 
whom they leave behind, there seems no sufficient 
reason for silence. 

It would be foreign to the objects of this sketch 
however, — even if the space allotted to it did not 
forbid, — to give Mr. Fletcher's biography in full. 
Xo details, therefore, of his private or domestic life 
will be found in it, except such as may be necessary 
to illustrate those aspects of his character, as a 
Christian and a citizen, which may be most profitably 
studied by young men. Among such details must be 
reckoned a few particulars of his youthful days, that 
the reader may see under what circumstances and 
influences his early character — in which, as the poetic 
paradox has it, the "boy is father to the man" — was 
formed. 

He was born at Compton, near Wolverhampton, in 
Staffordshire, where his forefathers had lived for some 
generations on their patrimonial acres. The property 
had been diminished by the extravagance of his 
grandfather, whose riot and whose penitence were 
doomed to be equally fatal to his children's inherit- 
ance ; for, having wasted a good portion of the estate 
during his life, he superstitiously sought to make 
amends by bequeathing twenty acres to the Church at 
his death. Mr. Fletcher's father, the eldest of six sons, 



138 Samuel Fletcher. 

thanks to the innate energy of his character, in some 
degree repaired the mischief the grandsire had done, 
and prevented the fortunes of the family from sinking 
lower. He was a man of great integrity and worth, 
and brought up in respectability a large family of ten 
children, of whom Samuel Fletcher was the youngest 
but one. His mother was the daughter of a Dissent- 
ing Minister at Dudley, of whose strong sense, active 
domestic virtues, and sincere piety, he ever retained 
the strongest impression ; and to her influence and 
companionship (as is plain from a fragmentary notice 
of his early life, found among his papers) he attributed 
a large share in the formation of his character. As 
his father was a Churchman, and his mother had been 
brought up a Dissenter, so Mr. Fletcher may be said 
to have inherited some of the best qualities of both 
communions, and certainly ever evinced in after life a 
spirit of conciliation, and a large-hearted tolerance of 
ecclesiastical differences, which fancy might suppose 
prefigured by such an extraction. It would seem, 
from the fragment just referred to, that this "youngest 
but one " was a special favourite with his mother ; 
though she often manifested her partiality in modes 
which, however intended for his good, showed a much 
higher appreciation of his ultimate welfare than of his 
present inclinations; on the other hand, the ready 
obedience which it is evident he ever yielded to her 
wishes, even when they seemed unreasonable, was a 



Samtiel Fletcher. 1 3 9 

good augury of his future character. He had well 
learned to "bear," and to bear with cheerfulness, "the 
yoke in his youth/' 

His good mother was one of those notable managers 
who believe that the cardinal vice of all youth is idle- 
ness, and that if all sin does not consist in it, at least 
all sin will grow out of it ; and in that, perhaps, she 
was not far wrong. A sentence or two in which he 
speaks of his mother's discipline, and the somewhat 
equivocal form which his holidays assumed, will give 
some idea of the influences under which his youth was 
moulded. He was little likely, it may be inferred, to 
be idle or waste his time in after life. 

"My mother," he says, "was a most active, 
industrious woman. I never knew her unoccupied. 
When the active duties of the day were done, she 
took her knitting in hand ; and on my return from 
school in the evening, she required me to read to 
her the Bible or some religious work. If haply, on 
my way from leading the cows back to pasture, I 
turned aside to join a game of play with the boys 
on the green, I soon heard my mother's shrill voice, 
summoning me back to the homestead. .... If 
other occupation failed, there was always some bed 
in the garden to be weeded ; and the greater part of 
one midsummer vacation I spent in weeding a field of 
seven acres of barley, overspread by the wild mustard. 
Here, alone, and a mile from any house, the hours 



1 40 Samuel Fletcher, 

passed slowly away. Thus, I never knew what it was 
to suffer from idle weariness." 

At ten years of age he was sent to the Grammar 
School at Wolverhampton. Here he received the 
education which was usually given at similar schools 
at that day. As Compton was two miles from the 
school, — where he had to make his appearance by 
seven o'clock, in all weathers and at all seasons, 
— it is pretty plain that the discipline at home for 
preventing " idleness," and forming hardy and indus- 
trious habits, must have been vigorously enforced 
by his school experience. He says, " The school- 
hours were from seven to nine, ten to twelve, and two 
to five; and as I had two miles to walk, I had to 
leave home in the morning soon after six. This, in 
the winter season, was often felt to be a hardship, as 
the road was lonely, and led for some distance through 
a deep, dark hollow. I was generally one of the first 
arrivals, and got a good warming at the fire before the 
school commenced. My progress in classical learning 
was certainly not impeded by the fulness of my daily 
diet. A two miles' walk and two hours' study was a 
good preparation for breakfast, — which consisted daily 
of a roll and a pat of butter. On returning home 
after school, I carried my Virgil under my arm, and 
learned my twenty lines of repetition on the way." 
On arriving home he had his other lessons for the 
next day to prepare, while his indefatigable mother 



Samuel Fletcher. 141 

generally exacted some home-tasks by way of filling 
up any chance vacuities in the evening of the well- 
spent day. 

At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed at 
Wolverhampton, and a curious incident shows how 
early and strong was that desire for mental culture and 
self-improvement which characterised him through 
life. There was one apartment allotted to the use of 
himself and two fellow-apprentices, where, when the 
business of the day was over, they adjourned to waste 
or use their leisure, as their several tastes dictated, 
While young Fletcher sat diligently reading, one of his 
companions was practising on the French horn, and 
the other might be heard spouting Shakspeare with 
loud voice and vehement gesticulation. This last 
gentleman became afterwards a comic actor of some 
celebrity : whether the youth who accompanied him 
on the French horn ever achieved any musical 
reputation, is not known ; but it may be safely inferred 
that the quiet studies of their young companion, so 
perseveringly pursued and amidst such hubbub, indi- 
cated a decided turn for the " pursuit of knowledge 
under difficulties," and gave hope of his being some- 
thing in after life. 

In 1805, when twenty years of age, he came to 
Manchester, and after some years of further experience 
in a Manchester house, he commenced business in 
181 1 for himself; and in a few years, by constant 



1 4 2 Samuel Fletcher. 

assiduity and perseverance, took his place among the 
foremost merchants of that great mercantile city. 

From this time forward there is little to be related 
in connection with his commercial life ; there are no 
great catastrophes to be recorded, no brilliant specula- 
tions, no signal reverses or recoveries — such as some- 
times make mercantile history almost a romance e 
His prosperity flowed on in an equable stream — due 
in a great degree to that characteristic prudence and 
judgment, which made him averse from all rash 
ventures, and to that thorough integrity which gave 
him the entire confidence of all with whom he had 
transactions. 

In a word, he conducted business after those modes 
and in that spirit, which must ever constitute the true 
glory of commerce, and which first secured for the 
" British Merchant " the honours attached to his name 
and position.* 

* A striking example of the integrity with which Mr. Fletcher 
interpreted promises, whether there was or not a. formal obliga- 
tion, was given a short time after he commenced business. 

An event of European interest (the battle of Leipsic) caused 
a revolution in the Manchester market, and suddenly and enor- 
mously enhanced the value of a certain class of goods, of which 
Mr. Fletcher happened to have a considerable quantity in stock, 
but which he had virtually promised to a customer at a much 
lower price, before the startling news arrived. An enterprising 
speculator came in, and offered to take the entire stock at the 
present advanced prices, or even to advance upon that. Mr. 
Fletcher told him that though the goods were in his warehouse, 
they were not his to sell. It was in vain that the usual casuistry 



Samuel Fletcher. 143 

In attempting to trace a few features of Mr. Fletcher's 
character, a prominent place must be given to a trait 
in which few men of business have offered a more 
instructive example to young men ; we allude to his 
persevering efforts at self-culture and his ardent pursuit 
of knowledge, under a firm conviction both that all 
such culture and knowledge may be turned to profit- 
able uses, and that, whether they be so or not, they 
constitute per se a main source of that happiness in 
life, of which riches, honours, success, and all the 
forms of material prosperity are still but instruments, 
and of value only as they promote it ; though they are 
too often foolishly regarded as ends. This desire for 
self-improvement has been illustrated in an incident of 
Mr. Fletcher's youth ; and it followed him through the 
whole of his more busy years. His school education, 
as already shown, terminated early, — as he often 
lamented ; he was soon immersed in the active duties 
of life : and while laying the foundation of his 
business, and rearing it to the solid structure it after- 



of interest was employed to shake the plain ethics of truth and 
honour ; it was in vain urged that the goods were still on his 
hands, that the bargain had not been formally ratified, that when 
he made the promise it was impossible he could anticipate such a 
sudden change in the market, and so on. Mr, Fletcher contented 
himself with saying that, however vexatious the loss, he had 
really, if not formally, agreed to part with the goods at the price 
stipulated ; and that ' ' a just man, even though he swears to his 
own hurt, change th not." 



1 44 Samuel Fletcher. 

wards became, he was also much occupied, as became 
a Christian man and a good citizen, in various public 
movements. But nothing prevented his sedulous 
efforts to cultivate his own mind. He gave a portion 
of every day to the perusal of that class of books 
which are alike precious as mental tonics, and 
valuable for the knowledge they convey. In order to 
secure leisure for this, he regulated his time with a 
severe economy, and redeemed some hours, either at 
night or early morning, which others would have 
given to sleep or idle amusement. We have it from 
members of his family, that when he was in the 
mid career of his most busy life, he was for many 
years in the habit of rising very early, lighting his own 
fire (which was laid over night), and spending two or 
three hours in reading, and in private devotion, 
before going to his counting-house. In the evening 
he generally spent some time, in spite of the fatigues 
of the day, in a similar manner; often, however, 
reading aloud to his family, when they were alone, — 
which he did with excellent taste and judgment. He 
usually selected either some book of solid instruction, 
or such portions of the best poetry or prose-fiction, 
as would really repay perusal, and improve the mind 
as well as delight it. In these ways he gained a 
fair acquaintance with no small portion of the best 
English classics, and evinced to the end of his life 
the liveliest appreciation of them. So intent was he 



Samuel Fletcher. 145 

on treasuring up what struck him as gems of thought, 
whether in poetry or prose, that he was in the 
habit of copying out in the blank leaves of his 
pocket-book any remarkable passage he met with in 
his daily reading ; and the widely different sources 
from which these are taken, show both how excursive 
his reading was, and how thoughtfully he read. 
Systematically pursuing this course of intelligent self- 
improvement, he acquired not only knowledge, but a 
correct and manly taste, and keenly appreciated 
whatever was marked by masculine vigour of thought 
and expression ; of course, as a necessary consequence, 
learning to despise the superficial literature which 
forms a large portion oixhs pabulum mentis of the young 
of this generation, and too often effectually stunts 
their general intellectual growth. Second-rate fiction 
was his especial abhorrence. On the other hand he 
had a peculiarly keen relish for the beauties of poetry ; 
indeed so keen that, exemplary man of business 
though he was, it would almost have ruined him in 
the eyes of the austere merchant in Rob Roy. Nay, 
the love of poetry so stimulated him, that he 
occasionally invoked the muse himself. He did not 
however, like Frank Osbaldistone, attempt those 
ambitious strains which exposed the unlucky " Ode to 
the Black Prince" to the scornful criticism of the 
senior; but employed his muse as a vehicle for 
expressing private affection or devotional feeling, and 

L 



1 46 Samuel Fletcher. 

in strains designed, of course, only for the family 
circle. 

From nature and habit, activity was his element, 
and he could not be idle. One of his family relates 
that, after a serious illness which seemed to threaten 
paralysis (when he was near his seventieth year), and 
which compelled, for a considerable time, that enforced 
idleness which wearies such men more than the most 
irksome labour, the idea of compiling a small selection 
of hymns for domestic worship fortunately occurred to 
him, — a light and pleasant task which might occupy 
without straining the mind. For this purpose he 
gathered about him all the " collections of hymns " he 
could lay his hands on. These he laboriously collated, 
and taking out what seemed to him the best (here 
and there abridging, or slightly altering), he formed 
a small selection which was afterwards printed for the 
use of his own family, and is one of the best we have 
seen ; containing enough for variety, yet not so many 
as to include any but the best. The retrenchments and 
omissions do much credit to the taste and judgment 
of the compiler. 

It was an indication of the same activity of mind 
and love of knowledge, that when travelling for 
pleasure, he spared no exertion or cost in visiting 
whatever was curious or instructive in nature or art, 
or the localities hallowed by historic associations ; 
he was equally intent on making all such impressions 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 4 7 

durable. For this purpose he would select for his 
evening readings in his family, either previous to 
setting out on a tour, or en route, such books of 
poetry, fiction, or history as bore upon the special 
locality he was about to visit, that they might be pre- 
pared intelligently to enjoy all they saw; for similar 
reasons, he always kept a brief journal of his tours. 
and, in some cases, was at the pains to illustrate 
it, by procuring and inserting engravings of the 
most remarkable places and objects he had seen. 
When a man does things of this kind simply for his 
own pleasure and improvement, or those of his family. 
without any hope of fame or profit, it can only be 
from an ardent love of knowledge and self-culture. 

Of the value he attached to all culture, and of his 
earnest desire to secure to the mercantile classes 
in particular the means of an improved education. 
he gave signal proof in the part he took in the forma- 
tion of Owens' College (opened in 1851). the original 
conception of which, we believe, is due to him ; and 
that circumstance, together with the importance of the 
institution itself, may justify a little detail as to its origin. 
and its special utility in such a city as Manchester. 

In conversation with one of his most intimate 
friends, George Faulkner, Esq., Mr. Fletcher mentioned 
that in a late journey on the Continent, he had been 
struck with the facilities afforded to the middle classes. 
by the colleges existing in many large towns ot 



1 48 Samuel Fletcher. 

Germany and Switzerland, of obtaining a liberal 
education at small expense. He regretted that a 
city like Manchester should have no such institution, 
where young men, destined for mercantile life, might 
secure a higher culture than was at present open to 
them. He suggested that it would be a noble and 
worthy thing, if some man of fortune who had no 
immediate claims on him, were to appropriate it to 
this object 5 that any individual who would found 
such a college would be a benefactor to the town, and 
to many generations ; and that, for himself, he would 
be glad, at any time, to give a thousand pounds 
towards it. Mr. Faulkner was much interested in the 
conversation. Shortly after, this gentleman was 
summoned to the deathbed of an intimate friend, 
Mr. Owens, who told him that, as he had no children 
or near relatives, he had sent for him to consult with 
him as to how he should dispose of the bulk of his 
fortune, 100,000/. It is reported that he offered to 
make Mr. Faulkner his heir, and that the latter 
replied that " he had enough of his own," and, with 
magnanimous simplicity, declined it ; but, remember- 
ing the idea suggested by Mr. Fletcher, he asked 
Mr. Owens if he could do better than found a College 
in his own town with it ? Mr. Owens was pleased 
with the notion, and so the money was appropriated 
to this object. It is certainly not often that the offer 
of 100,000/. is thus philosophically declined, or that 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 49 

so few words serve to transfer such a sum from a 
private to a public destination ! 

Mr. Fletcher had long discerned the urgent need of 
some such institution, and was fond of descanting on 
the advantages to the young merchant of a better 
education than the ordinary schools afforded. He had 
a firm conviction that a man would not be the less 
diligent in business, nor make the worse merchant, 
for a sound general training ; and in this he was un- 
questionably right. As special reasons for a college 
at Manchester, he argued that, many a parent who 
would prize a liberal education for his children, would 
hesitate to incur the expenditure of time and money 
involved in sending them to the universities ; that 
many others felt a natural reluctance, when a young 
man was predestined to business, to incur the hazard 
of such an experiment, as the genius loci, the seduc- 
tions of a too long sojourn in the abodes of the Muses, 
and the attractions of polite literature, too often 
alienated the mind from commerce altogether; that 
from the early age at which it was often absolutely 
necessary for a youth to enter the manufactory or the 
warehouse, it was impossible that the experiment 
(whether wise or not) should be made; and that 
hence it was most desirable that there should be in 
Manchester itself an institution in which, while not 
neglecting the disciplinary studies essential to all 
intellectual development, special attention might be 



150 Samuel Fletcher. 

given to the pursuits likely to be of most value to men 
of business ; especially to those departments of science 
(as, for example, chemistry) which are chiefly useful 
in the arts, and to commercial and economical 
philosophy. 

To this happy and well-timed suggestion of one of 
these three friends — to the magnanimity of the second, 
and the munificence of the third — Owens' College 
owed its origin. Nor was that casual suggestion, 
leading as it did to such important results, among the 
least of the many good deeds of Mr. Fletcher's long 
and useful life. 

In this Institution, Mr. Fletcher ever took, during 
the remainder of his life, the liveliest interest, — himself 
founding a scholarship, and giving, once and again, 
considerable sums towards the purchase of a suitable 
building as well as to its general funds. His bene- 
volent feelings were warmly interested in the project, 
not only because it enabled many lads to carry on their 
education beyond the school training, before finally 
going into the manufactory or counting-house, or (if 
they must go there at the early age they often do) 
because it enabled them to remedy their deficiencies 
by evening classes and lectures ; but, still more, 
because he thought it likely to have beneficial moral 
effects on the same class, by usefully occupying the 
intervals of leisure ; leisure which, otherwise, is apt 
to be wasted, or worse than wasted ; he thought that, 



Samuel Fletcher. 151 

at the very least, it might prevent many from sinking 
into what they too often become — mere machines in 
the warehouse or counting-house, and mere idlers and 
loungers when the day's work is done ; having little 
intelligence, except that which is required for the 
mechanical routine of business, and no knowledge of 
books, except that of the last slipshod novel. 

For these reasons he thought that the supple- 
mentary means of improvement which Owens' College 
affords, especially in its evening classes, might prove 
most valuable ; and the Institution is in fact more and 
more appreciated in this respect. 

Mr. Fletcher's convictions of the desirableness of 
giving to young men a longer and more thorough 
training than commonly falls to their lot, were doubt- 
less in part derived from his recollection of the dis- 
advantages under which he had himself laboured, but 
still more from the benefits he had reaped from his 
own resolute and self-denying efforts for mental culture. 

Though most men will agree in the general truth 
and soundness of Mr. Fletcher's views on this subject, 
there are, and will be, very different opinions as to 
the sort and degree of culture possible and desirable 
under the different circumstances of mercantile life ; 
and if Mr. Fletcher seemed sometimes disposed to 
press his opinions more strongly than some of his 
mercantile friends approved, the difference of judgment 
probably originated in not sufficiently discriminating 



152 Samuel Fletcher. 

between the utterly different conditions (wide as the 
poles asunder), under which the classes which com- 
pose the great mercantile and manufacturing world 
are formed, and which make it simply impossible to 
lay down any methods of education equally applicable 
to all. Three coexisting generations in the manu- 
facturing districts (father, son, and grandson), will- 
sometimes bridge over the whole space between the 
artisan and the peer ! 

There is, for example, and there always will be, a 
class of prosperous and successful manufacturers and 
merchants, to whom the whole question is almost 
without significance; men who before they began, 
properly speaking, that career which has terminated 
in great wealth and influence, had the question de- 
cided for them by circumstances ; men who, in their 
youth, never had, and could not get, more than the 
most rudimentary sort of school knowledge ; but who, 
having plenty of mother-wit, perhaps great inventive 
genius, indomitable energy of character, indefatigable 
industry, resolute desire for improvement (so far as 
leisure permitted), the acuteness to see, and the per- 
severance to avail themselves of every chance of 
success, have risen from the very lowest station to an 
affluence which many of the aristocracy would envy. 
Such men will always be cropping out from the lower 
strata of mercantile society, and rising above it \ and 
hard bits of granite they generally are. 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 5 3 

Even with regard to such men, indeed, it is true that 
" the more knowledge the better ;" the more they 
have when they begin to climb the hill, the easier the 
ascent will be. This is often exemplified in the history 
of enterprising Scotch lads, to whom their grammar- 
school education, and the habits of mind formed by 
it, have frequently given a most prosperous start. 
Though Dr. Johnson might growl out, that learning 
in Scotland was like bread in a besieged city, " where 
each man has a mouthful and no man a bellyful," 
these youths have found it abundantly true, that 
" half a loaf is better than no bread." Nevertheless it 
is also true, that with regard to the self-made men here 
referred to, knowledge must have been scanty at the 
best ; and education, except such as they have be- 
stowed upon themselves, little more than a name. 

And many of them do bestow that education on them- 
selves to some purpose ; so that observers, who have 
lived among them, will often be surprised at the trans- 
formation which energy of character, friction with the 
world, converse with the more educated classes, habits 
acquired by having to deal with large transactions and 
to administer complicated affairs, have often effected ; 
though doubtless, to the last, these men often remind 
us of Milton's half-created lion, part out of the earth, 
and part below it : — 

' ' pawing to get free 

Their hinder parts." 



154 Sam it el Fletcher. 

But what is to become of the second generation, 
the sons of these men, born to competence, perhaps to 
great wealth ? It would be as cruel, as it would be 
impossible, to condemn them to begin at the very 
lowest round of the ladder : and we must do their 
hard-headed fathers the justice to say, that they are in 
general fully aware of the importance of the education 
they themselves lacked, and most anxious that their 
sons should enjoy it. 

One of these sons perhaps will go to the Law, 
another into the Church, a third will be a country 
gentleman. For these, no reason can be assigned 
why they should not receive the ordinary University 
education ; but what is to be done with those who are 
predestined, or predestine themselves, to carry on their 
father's business ? to administer the affairs of his 
manufactory with its iooo or 1200 hands, or occupy 
his high-legged throne (it is hardly too strong a term 
for that seat of power) at the warehouse ? How are 
these to be best qualified to hold their own, and more 
than their own, against the enterprising novus homo 
who (like their own fathers) will anon be rising up 
and be "'ready to push them from their stools?" They 
must, for the most part, begin early ; to defer the race 
till the university curriculum has been fully run, is to 
lose it. Nor are there wanting, as experience shows, 
other dangers to be guarded against. Many examples 
prove that the prejudice of mercantile men against 



Samuel Fletcher. 155 

giving their sons the full advantages of a University 
education, is not without foundation ; and hence they 
look upon such a course with suspicion. The in- 
stances are not few, as they see, in which it has proved 
a perilous experiment to give the youth destined to 
commerce, that education w T hich is very properly 
given to him who is looking forward to one of the 
learned professions, or to no profession at all. The 
associations formed, the nature of the studies pursued, 
the prolonged time spent in scenes and avocations 
foreign to commerce may, and often do, disgust the 
young mind with the thought of it ; the University 
becomes to such a student what Calypso's Isle was to 
Ulysses ; and the not unfrequent issue is, that the 
youth refuses to enter on commerce, or soon quits it, 
or worse than all, continues in it and becomes a — 
bankrupt. Hence parents have often doubted whether 
anything beyond the school training, which is to 
terminate at the age of fourteen or so, is good for 
men of business. But in this they are assuredly in 
the wrong. All that is required is, that the general 
direction of a youth's training (and especially towards 
the close of it) should be such as to bear upon his 
future destination. If this be kept in view, there are 
few who would not coincide in those opinions of 
Mr. Fletcher, which made him so strenuous an advo- 
cate for Owens' College. 

It may be remarked that not only was his judgment 



156 Samuel Fletcher. 

sound as to the advantages of a more prolonged and 
thorough education for mercantile men generally; 
but such education seems peculiarly necessary in the 
present day, if we consider the vast and complex 
character of modern mercantile transactions, and the 
possibilities of public position and influence which, in 
this free country, open to the successful merchant 
himself. As to the first : it is beginning to be felt 
that something more than a mere elementary know- 
ledge, and mechanical adroitness in the routine of the 
counting-house, are essential to the just management 
of an extensive manufactory or a large shipping busi- 
ness. While there are some branches of trade in 
which it is admitted that it is not of much consequence, 
except to the youth himself, whether he be dismissed 
from school at thirteen or sixteen, and in which mere 
routine will be his duty through life, there are many 
others which, from the complicated relations of modern 
commerce, really require, in order to be wisely and 
effectively managed, as large an amount of well-digested 
knowledge and well-trained sagacity, as almost any 
pursuits to which a man can devote himself; they 
imply a mind drilled to habits of discrimination, ac- 
customed to weigh evidence and calculate probabilities, 
inured to patient and persevering thought on difficult 
subjects, familiar with the leading principles of eco- 
nomic science, and an extensive knowledge of the 
nature of the commodities and wants of the principal 



Samuel Fletcher. 157 

countries and markets of the globe. Without this, 
any large business will be liable to be carried on, not 
as commerce always ought to be carried on — as in fact 
a branch of human pursuit to which the principles of 
induction are strictly applicable — but as it too often is 
carried on, namely, as a matter of hope and chance ; 
not as the result of a patient and sagacious calculation 
of complicated probabilities, but just on the principles 
on which the same parties would put into a lottery or 
play a game at hazard. Nor does it appear impro- 
bable that many of the rash and gambling speculations 
which often disgrace the commerce of this great 
country, have flowed, not so much from an obliquity 
of moral principle, as from that insufficiency of know- 
ledge and want of mental energy which a more thorough 
and complete training in the elements of the sciences of 
calculation and induction would go far to supply ; both 
as securing the requisite knowledge, and forming the 
habits of discrimination, energy, and industry, essential 
to its use. Without such knowledge and such habits, 
the mind will neither have light enough, nor strength 
enough, to deal with difficult problems of commerce ; 
and with them, it assuredly will not trade upon hope 
and chance, where either certainty or probability can 
be substituted for them. Nor, secondly, is this train- 
ing of less consequence in relation to the possible, 
often probable, public destination of the successful 
merchant or manufacturer himself. He may rightfully 



1 5 8 Samuel Fletcher. 

aspire, if he but conjoin with wealth adequate mental 
culture, to become a magistrate, a member of Parlia- 
ment, even a member of the Government ; and in all 
probability the House of Commons will be more and 
more recruited from this class of men. 

In the third generation, that rapid transformation of 
which this free country has happily afforded so many 
instances, is often complete. Transformed into large 
capitalists or landowners, the representatives of the 
families of great manufacturers or merchants are 
often lost to the eyes of commerce altogether. These 
folks may do as they please about a full University 
education for their children ; and perchance one or 
other of those who receive it (though no more than 
the grandson of a handloom weaver), may sit on the 
woolsack, or be Chancellor of the Exchequer, or, like 
Sir Robert Peel, become Prime Minister of England. 
It is this " possibility of achieving greatness," open to 
every man according to his ability, that constitutes 
one of the most glorious features of our country ; but 
there are no spots in it in which such strange muta- 
tions of fortune have been so frequently or so rapidly 
effected as in the great manufacturing and mercantile 
centres. In three coexisting generations, as before 
said, we may sometimes see the widest possible ex- 
tremes of social life ; a bridge of only three arches 
shall span the whole interval between the cottage and 
the palace ! 



Sam tcel Fletcher. 159 

Mr. Fletcher might probably, if he had pleased, have 
been himself an instance among many others of the 
facility with which successful commerce opens the 
way to an honourable public career. 

His character and talents, integrity and sound judg- 
ment, and that general culture for which we have been 
pleading in men of his class, led some of his fellow- 
citizens on one occasion to ask if he would consent to 
be nominated as a candidate for the representation of 
Manchester. But he was then past the prime of life, 
and he could not prevail upon himself (nor were his 
family willing to give him up) to leave the domestic 
privacy he loved so well. For many years, however, 
he acted as one of the magistrates for the county : 
and the copious notes he took of the cases brought 
before him on the bench, show the conscientious 
diligence with which he discharged that office. 

But it is as a Christian philanthropist — as a " faith- 
ful steward " of the large gifts of fortune with which 
he had been entrusted — that his character chiefly 
claims admiration, and is instructive as an example. 
From the earliest period of his career he was in the 
habit of giving a certain proportion of his income to 
charity — a proportion which he enlarged as his wealth 
increased ; and the present writer speaks from know- 
ledge, and strictly within limits, in saying, that for a 
long series of years Mr. Fletcher's annual benefactions 
amounted to nearly thirty or forty per cent, of his 



1 60 Samuel Fletcher. 

income. This charity, while most catholic as regards 
its application, was exercised with great discrimina- 
tion ; a cool judgment presided over it : he was never 
led away by enthusiasm, and, unless thoroughly con- 
vinced that the object justified his liberality, he well 
knew how to refuse, — a task often quite as hard as it 
is to give. His charity was always most unosten- 
tatious ; often choosing secret channels for its con- 
veyance, and only known to his friends by accident, 
or the verdure of the spots it irrigated. " Much of 
the good he did," says Mr. Thompson, in his Funeral 
Sermon, " could not be concealed; but his private 
charities, there is reason to believe, were large and 
unwearied" 

In every enterprise of religious benevolence, 
whether local or general, Mr. Fletcher was ever ready 
to co-operate. To the Bible and Missionary Societies 
he subscribed munificently. Of the Manchester 
branch of the London Missionary Society he was 
one of the founders, for many years the treasurer, and 
always a most liberal benefactor. In addition to his 
ample annual subscription, he gave large sums to the 
society at various times, and on one occasion a do- 
nation of 1000/. Of local associations none had 
more of his time, energy, or bounty, than the Man- 
chester City Mission. Like many other generous 
men in that city, he himself paid the annual stipend 
of one missionary. Besides this, many supplementary 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 6 1 

donations, when funds fell short, came from his purse, 
though few beyond the secretary (and he not always) 
knew whence it came. It has been said that he was 
one of the first who enlarged the general scale of 
giving to religious and benevolent objects, by ex- 
posing the absurdity of that traditional guinea which 
once formed the too uniform, because it had become 
the customary, gratuity, whether the donor was a man 
of 500/. or 5000/. a year. 

But his benevolence, like that of all truly religious 
men, did not restrict itself to the care of the soul 
alone; indeed, the last-named Society, in which he 
took so deep an interest to his last hour, is hardly 
less designed or adapted to promote the temporal 
than the spiritual well-being of those for whom it was 
instituted. In the same manner, every plan for alle- 
viating the sorrows of the poor, the sick, the blind, 
the orphan, were secure of Mr. Fletcher's sympathy 
and aid. 

He was, indeed, in his own person a striking 
refutation of certain plausible calumnies with which 
Christian philanthropy is often assailed. While it is 
the glory of Christianity that its history has ever been 
marked by an impartial benevolence; that it ever 
has been, and is at this moment, identilied with those 
institutions and societies which contemplate the alle- 
viation of man's temporal condition as well as the 
promotion of his spiritual welfare, — institutions and 

M 



1 6 2 Samuel Fletcher. 

societies of which the ancient world never dreamed, — 
the Christian is often taunted (especially in this day) 
with expending his liberality on purely religious 
objects ; with forgetting the misery and squalor which 
lie at his door, in a fanatic concern for the heathen 
abroad ; with converting the Hindoo or Hottentot, 
and letting his next-door neighbour perish in igno- 
rance or starvation ! It is sufficient answer to say 
that there is not a single religious community, scarcely 
a religious congregation of any community, however 
small and poor, that has not its distinct machinery, 
not only for the alleviation of sickness and penury 
among its own members, but for succouring the 
needy, clothing the naked, and instructing the 
ignorant of its own neighbourhood. We will venture 
to say that those who, like Mr. Fletcher, are signally 
known for their munificence to purely religious 
objects, are also those who are best known as the 
supporters of all schemes of general philanthropy. 
It would perhaps be not too much to say that the 
annual revenue derived merely from that one rite 
in which Christians commemorate the love of the 
Master who commended to them the afflicted as " His 
brethren " — a revenue which is in all Churches con- 
secrated to their benefit — forms no mean supplement 
to the sum that is levied by the poor-rates on the 
public at large ; though that provision too is due to 
the fact that Christianity has taught the duty of 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 63 

making it, and is known only to the nations that 
have learned her maxims. Go where we will, if we 
find men penetrating the haunts of ignorance, and 
succouring disease and sickness, it will be found 
that it is generally Christian principle that impels 
them, and in proportion as they are Christians. And 
it were strange if it were otherwise, since such active 
benevolence is made the very test of all true-hearted 
disciples of Christ ; who are told that, " Whoever 
hath this world's goods, and seeth his brother have 
need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from 
him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ?" 

This calumny, in fact, is seldom taken up by those 
who have given themselves the trouble to examine 
the statistics of benevolence. Those who have, will 
be soon convinced that whatever Christians give to 
directly religious objects, will be found not dispro- 
portionate to what they expend on general objects of 
philanthropy ; nor what they do for religion abroad, 
disproportionate to what they do for benevolence at 
home. As was well said by a preacher whom we 
chanced to hear the other day, " the beggar who sat 
for alms at the gate of the temple called Beautiful, 
was but a type of multitudes in all ages, who, in spite 
of all calumnies, have a shrewd suspicion that they 
will be as likely, and a little more likely, to meet with 
charity at the doors of church or chapel than else- 
where, and from religious rather than irreligious 



1 64 Samuel Fletcher. 

people." And certainly, during the wide-spread des- 
titution of the Cotton Famine, that conviction of 
the suffering poor was strongly illustrated and con- 
firmed. 

The active benevolence which characterised Mr. 
Fletcher while he was in business, still characterised 
him when he left it ; or, rather (as all men of " retired 
leisure " should), he now made that his business ; and 
committees, reports, and treasurerships, found him 
almost as regular employment in his counting-house 
as commerce had done. 

In this respect, also, Mr. Fletcher was an instruc- 
tive example. He gave his time, toil, and talents in 
the cause of charity as freely as his money : and thus 
saw for himself that his bounty was duly administered. 
Many men of wealth are willing to give their money, 
but are not ready to give anything else; forgetting 
that the conscription of the Church Militant demands 
personal service, as well as pecuniary contributions ; 
and that it is only where the first cannot be rendered 
that the hired substitute can be accepted. 

Two or three instances, both of his liberality and 
his mode of exercising it, may be here mentioned. 
Not a little of the good he did was due to the 
sagacity with which he singled out his objects and 
conjoined counsel with more substantial aid. One 
of the most eminent merchants of Manchester, and 
one of her most deservedly honoured citizens, has 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 65 

himself often told, with a beautiful simplicity, how, be- 
ginning in very humble circumstances, he was at a 
critical period of his life encouraged by Mr. Fletcher 
when his own heart failed him; and thus probably 
(as he himself deemed) owed to him the foundation 
of his future fortune. It seems that on commencing 
business, which was in a very modest way, he had, in 
dependence on a loan from a friend, purchased certain 
goods at Mr. Fletcher's warehouse. The friend dis- 
appointed him, and he thought, with that high-minded 
integrity which was a bright omen of his future course, 
that he had better abandon his project, return the 
goods, and pay whatever the owner might think 
equitable for the loss of sale, than incur obligations 
which he might not be able to meet. He accordingly 
waited on Mr. Fletcher and explained his difficulty. 
Mr. Fletcher, who saw what was in his young friend 
better than he did himself, told him he thought he 
was too precipitate in abandoning his scheme. The 
other replied that he had been too precipitate in 
forming it, and that he must, as an honest man, 
abandon it. 

"Well," said Mr. Fletcher, "the goods were sold to 
you in a perfectly regular way, and I shan't take them 
back, I assure you." This sounded ominous ; but he 
added, with a smile, " Go on ; I think you will 
prosper ; but, if you can't pay for the goods, I shall 
never ask you for the money, so do not let that 



1 6 6 Samtcel Fletcher. 

trouble you." And so the good man went his way 
with a light heart; prospered, as Mr. Fletcher pre- 
dicted he would, and in due time became one of 
Manchester's " merchant princes " himself. 

On another occasion, remarking a great air of de- 
pression in a young minister who had recently settled 
in Manchester, but who has long since won a large 
share of public esteem, Mr. Fletcher said to him, 
"What is the matter? I am sure you must be 
suffering from some secret trouble. Tell me frankly 
what it is ; and, if I can, it will give me great pleasure 
to relieve you." At last, much pressed, he acknow- 
ledged that there was a debt on his place of worship 
which he did not see much hope of getting rid of; 
and that he was seriously debating with himself 
whether he must not quit Manchester and seek 
another scene of labour. Mr. Fletcher asked him the 
amount of the debt. He was told about 500/. " Is 
that what is troubling you?" said Mr. Fletcher. 
"Well, here is 100/. for you, and I will get a few 
friends to make up the rest." He was as good as 
his word; and the worthy man, relieved of his trouble, 
laboured so successfully, that he saw another place 
built, and obtained a second 100/. towards it from his 
old benefactor. 

It would not be easy to say how many young men 
were stimulated, both by his precept and example, to 
adopt his own large-hearted and systematic style of 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 6 



7 



giving : a style of giving really founded on a con- 
scientious calculation of the ratio of income to the 
claims upon it. One of the most intelligent, active, 
and liberal of the present generation of Manchester 
merchants, one who is " zealous in every good word 
and work/' anxious not only for the religious but the 
social welfare of all whom he can influence, has been 
known to relate how, when a lad, he was so impressed 
by Mr. Fletcher's expounding, on some public occa- 
sion, the obligation to give after this liberal fashion. 
that he mentally resolved from that moment to follow 
the counsel given, and has acted upon it ever since. 
The cause of public benevolence has already been the 
better for those few remarks by many thousands of 
pounds ; and if the enterprising and benevolent man 
to whom allusion is made, should be spared to Mr. 
Fletcher's age, it will be the better by many thousand 
pounds more. 

. His example as to a liberal style of giving operated 
very strongly on the minds of many of his contem- 
poraries, and of the next generation. It is but justice 
to Manchester to say that there was then, and is still, 
a class of men in that city quite ready to profit by the 
lesson ; men who are liberal after a style which very 
few places in the world can equal. 

This munificence is, in part, probably due to 
familiarity with large transactions, and proportionately 
extensive gains ; engendering in many cases a certain 



1 6 8 Sam uel Fletcher. 

''magnificence" of conception, as Aristotle would say, 
which one would seek in vain among the ordinary 
haunts of trade.'' Not a few of these "merchant 
princes " have learned not only to spend, but happily 
also to give, on the scale of their commercial trans- 
actions. This at first sight would seem to contradict 
another remark of the same shrewd philosopher 
(generally true to human nature), that it is those who 
have inherited large wealth who are most liberal of it ; 
while those who have made it for themselves are in 
general the most niggardly, as knowing what trouble 
they have had in getting it; he compares them to 
"mothers and poets," apt to be too fond of their own 
offspring. But though this observation is founded in 
general truth, it has its exceptions; exceptions frequent 
enough to entitle them to a place among the " Anti- 
theta " of Bacon. For when gains are large, when the 
transactions which produce them are large in propor- 
tion, and vast sums are constantly passing through the 
hands, a lavish habit of soul is often produced, quite 
as marked as can be found in the most favoured 
possessors of hereditary wealth. 

* The prodigious growth of this great mercantile emporium 
has been the work of about fifty years. To show with what a 
rapid current, or rather torrent, this prosperity has flowed, Mr. 
Fletcher was in the habit of saying that during his fifty-six years 
of residence he had seen the population of Manchester and Sal- 
ford increase from about 50,000 to more than 500,000 — a tenfold 
increase ; a population, in fact, doubling itself on an average in 
little more than every fifteen years. 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 69 

Many a " public beggar," who has tried the experi- 
ment will vouch for the truth of what is here said. 
Manchester often proves a very Eldorado to such as 
have to solicit subscriptions. There is not, perhaps, 
anyplace in England where the timid ''mendicant" 
of some religious or philanthropic society has been 
more frequently surprised by a larger gratuity than he 
had expected, or had ventured to ask ; when, looking 
only for a guinea, he has received two, or asking for 
two, has received five. The Manchester men have 
their faults, no doubt, like the men of all other places; 
faults which the world is not slow to spy out, nor much 
disposed to spare : but faults in many cases which are 
the very opposite of avarice. For profuse hospitality, 
and a large-hearted charity, the folks of Manchester 
need not fear comparison with those of any place in 
the world. 

The subject of this sketch was conspicuous for both 
these virtues. Broomfield, in fact, was nearly an open 
house for those who visited Manchester on any errand 
of religious or social philanthropy ; the great difference 
between it and an ordinary hotel being that such 
guests were entertained with greater observance, and 
when they went away, usually found the funds of their 
society augmented, instead of being diminished. 

Another point in which Mr. Fletcher was worthy of 
admiration and imitation, was his catholicity of spirit. 
While most earnestly attached to what he deemed the 



1 70 Samuel Fletcher. 

essential truths of Christianity, as held by what is 
generally called " the Evangelical School " in the 
Established Church, or among the Congregationalists 
(with whom he ordinarily worshipped), no one could 
be a greater enemy to all bigotry, more tolerant of 
minor differences, or impatient of what he considered 
the mere " Shibboleths " of religious parties. All 
forms of ecclesiastical polity he regarded as at best the 
outworks and buttresses of religious truth. So far did 
he carry this notion, that his friends have sometimes 
smiled at his vehemence on the subject; his zeal 
against intolerance was now and then almost itself 
intolerant, and his love of peace, like that of some 
members of the Peace Society, apt to look very much 
like war. 

He practically became a Congregationalist in early 
life ; but chiefly, from that condition of things which 
turned a good many other men into Nonconformists 
sixty years ago, namely, the spiritual lethargy of the 
Establishment at that time. But he had not, pro- 
bably, any very decided convictions on the abstract 
question of the connection between Church and State, 
or on some other points in the controversy between 
the Church and Nonconformists ; — points, not indeed 
of little moment in themselves, as many good men on 
both sides are full ready to affirm, let the truth be on 
which side it may. But of little importance relatively \ 
we may well admit them to be; and for that very 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 7 1 

reason they were of little importance in the eyes of so 
cosmopolitan a Christian as Mr. Fletcher. During 
the last twenty years of his life he worshipped both in 
church and chapel, though he was still found punctu- 
ally on Sunday morning in his old seat, in the Con- 
gregational Chapel, Grosvenor Street ; and to the end 
was a most liberal supporter of all its societies and 
institutions, and the faithful friend of the three suc- 
cessive pastors who occupied its pulpit during his long 
membership of fifty-three years. He attached himself 
to this congregation in the year 1806, when as a 
young man he first settled in Manchester. Mr. 
Roby, a name still revered there, then presided over 
it; a man who resembled Mr. Fletcher in many 
important respects, — in the soundness of his judgment, 
the consistency and uprightness of his life, the catho- 
licity of his sentiments and sympathies, and his 
unwearied benevolence. Like his friend and hearer, 
Mr. Fletcher, he conciliated, to an extraordinary 
degree, the love and veneration, not only of his co- 
religionists, but of all his fellow-citizens, and well 
deserved that noble encomium passed upon him in 
the eloquent discourse preached at his death by the 
late Dr. McAll. 

The various excellence we have been describing was 
deeply radicated in, and coloured by, religious prin- 
ciple ; and so will it ever be with a consistent and 
equable virtue. A man may be compassionate from 



172 Samuel Fletcher. ' 

sentiment, or prudent from habit or temperament • he 
may be a peacemaker from constitutional timidity ; he 
may be just in his transactions from a regard to 
interest as well as from a sense of right. But when he 
is alive to every claim of duty, and discharges each 
with impartial assiduity, it can only be from the 
supremacy of Conscience ; — that religious convic- 
tion, which, presiding over all the faculties of our 
nature, attunes them all to harmony, prompts them to 
a proportioned and regulated activity, and exercises a 
uniform and diffusive influence over the whole life. 
And it was so with the subject of this sketch. 

The secret spring of that power by which Mr. 
Fletcher was enabled thus equably to discharge the 
duties of life — to consecrate the large gifts that 
Providence had conferred upon him, to walk un- 
dazzled in the brightness of a life of almost continuous 
prosperity, to remain firm amidst the dark days of 
adversity — is to be found in his habitual devotion, and 
daily communion " with the eternal and unseen." 
Hence in all things, and as an habitual conviction of 
his every-day life, he realized his relation to the Great 
Master, and acted as ever in His eye. All his bene- 
factions were conceived in the spirit, — " The silver 
and the gold is Thine, and of Thine own have we 
given Thee." All his prosperity in a similar manner 
was received as an immediate donation from God : 
while enjoying, and properly using it, no one could be 



Samuel Fletcher. 1 7 3 

more sensible of its precarious nature except as 
secured by such a charter ; nor more aware of the 
dangers which it must ever bring to a soul untempered 
by the influences of religion. Again and again, in his 
private papers, appear passages which express his 
profound sense of this, and his earnest supplications 
that prosperity might not imperil the health of the 
soul, nurture habits and feelings of pride or vain-glory, 
or make him forgetful of the only safe condition of its 
enjoyment — that of "walking humbly with God." 
When he bought Broomfield and entered on a mode of 
life to which his position and fortune entitled him, but 
which contrasted with his previous more simple habits, 
he says : — " This day I removed with my family to 
Cheetham Hill, and took possession of a house more 
spacious and costly than I ever expected to occupy. 
I pray to God that my heart may not be lifted up on 
this account, and that I may not be permitted to 
indulge proud and vain thoughts of my own suffi- 
ciency and stability ; or disposed to be less earnest in 
seeking ' a building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens.' " 

Perhaps he was permitted to enjoy this continuous 
outward prosperity because he had so well learned 
and habitually practised those lessons which in general 
are only learned in adversity, — lessons so often neces- 
sary to shatter in pieces the arrogance and self-suffi- 
ciency which prosperity has engendered. But though 



1 74 Samuel Fletcher. 

he might not require the lesson of any great reverses 
of fortune, he doubtless needed, like every other man, 
the trials by which God tests the faith which is willing 
to trust Him in the darkness as in the light ; the 
salutary medicines by which He restores or invigorates 
the health of the soul ; the " great mercy of an afflic- 
tion," (as Jeremy Taylor would say), with which " He 
chasteneth every son whom he receiveth." And when 
the dark days of sorrow came, Mr. Fletcher showed 
that he had well learned how to submit to the Divine 
Will. His acquiescence, indeed (particularly in one 
terrible tragedy of his life*), was such as almost to 
impress those who were strangers to him with the idea 
that he was a sort of Christian Stoic, so calm was his 
exterior, so self-possessed his manner, so uninterrupted 
his discharge, and even cheerful discharge, of every- 
day duties ; so strongly did he exact of himself, and 
require in others, the mastery of every kind and 
degree of emotion which might be thought inconsistent 
with Christian resignation to the will of God. Any 
notion of his being " a Stoic," however, would have 

* Allusion is here made to the murder of his daughter Harriet 
and her husband, on their estate in Euboea, in Greece. The 
bullet which pierced the fathers heart penetrated the cradle in 
which their first-born child was sleeping. The brigands (the 
chief of whom was a son of the priest of the village) were con- 
victed and executed. ^Yhile excluding the private details of 
Mr. Fletcher's life in general, allusion is freely made to this, for 
in truth it could be hardly called private, — awakening as it did a 
thrill of commiseration and sympathy through the whole country. 



Sam ice I Fletcher. 1 7 5 

been a very erroneous one ; and, if this were the 
place for it, many proofs might be given indicating 
much sensibility and tenderness of heart. He acted 
as he did because he had tutored himself to comply 
with the claims of Christian resignation, and of manly 
fortitude. 

Had he allowed the sums which he gave to religion 
and humanity to accumulate, he might easily have 
died a ??iillionaire. But he put his money to a more 
profitable usury ; and reaped, at the very time, a 
greater as well as a purer gratification than he could 
have done by seeing the "glittering heap" grow larger. 
He was happy in having it to give ; still happier in 
being willing to give it ; and not least happy in this, 
that he left not one member of his family who wished 
that he had given less to the exchequer of the poor, 
or to the treasury of God ; or that he had died richer 
by any diminution of his alms to the halt, the blind, 
the orphan, or the widow. 

Mr. Fletcher died, Oct. 13, 1863, in his seventy- 
ninth year, and was buried in St. Luke's Church, 
amidst a large concourse of spectators who loved and 
revered his memory ; the Bishop of Manchester 
spontaneously paying a graceful tribute to his public 
worth by conducting the funeral service. 



176 



VI. 

SOME THOUGHTS ON PROSE 
COMPOSITION. 

TF " prose," according to the lucid definition which 
the Mditre de Philosophic gives to " Le Bour- 
geois Gentilhomme," be " all that is not verse," we 
need not wonder at the surprise or the rapture with 
which M. Jourdain found that " he had been talking 
prose for more than forty years without knowing it." 
But if by " prose " he meant a " species of literary 
composition," — possessing, no less than poetry, its 
characteristic proprieties in the apt expression of 
continuous thought and feeling, — then he enormously 
flattered himself in this conclusion. 

In truth, the "art of prose composition" is a phrase 
quite as intelligible as the " art of painting" or the 
"art of music." If it be thought that prose seems a 
more natural use of language, and verse a more 
artificial, the difference is still only one of degree. 

Both are natural, and both are artificial. There are 
conditions of the human soul in which the boldest 



Prose Composition. 177 

outbursts of lyric song, though in one sense artificial, 
are as natural as the warbling of the nightingale ; 
while it is equally true that the most natural eloquence 
will be none the less natural, but the more so, that 
there has been a designed and skilful application of 
means to ends. In fact, the words Nature and Art, 
where the latter means no more than this, are but 

I complements of one another, and can never be op- 
posed. 

So far from prose being so simple an affair as 

'j M. Jourdain supposes, it is a somewhat curious fact 

that in the literature of all nations it has been preceded 

by verse. Of course there w T as always plenty of prose 

of the nature of M. Jourdain's extemporaneous speci- 

'i men, — who asks whether, "if he orders his servant to 
• . . . 

bring him his slippers, that is prose ?" and is happy to 

find it is. Language no doubt was always sufficient 
! for colloquial purposes, before literary composition 
I was thought of. Men could always buy and sell, and 

get gain, and cheat, and wrangle, and rail, and quarrel, 
, and make it up again,, without invoking any one of the 

Sacred Nine/' v 

* Coleridge curiously observes, " It has just struck my feelings 
that the Pherecydean origin of prose being granted, prose must 
have struck men with greater admiration than poetry. In the 
latter, it was the language of passion and emotion. . . But to 
hear an evolving roll, or a succession of leaves, talk continually 
! the language of deliberate reason in a form of continued precon- 
' ception .... this must have appeared godlike. " 

N 



178 Prose Composition. 

But in the sense of a " species of literary composi- 
tion," it dates later than poetry. Nor however curious, 
is the fact wonderful. In the development of literature 
in general, it could hardly be otherwise. Poetry 
under some form or other, in metre or without, would 
naturally be the elder-born of genius ; for in the his- 
tory of a community, as in that of the individual, the 
imagination may be in its youthful prime, while reason 
is yet a child. As woman arrives at maturity before 
man, so the feminine graces of fancy may be in full 
bloom, while the intellect is still in its teens. Hence 
in part (though in part also from the necessities of a 
scanty vocabulary), the language of barbarous nations 
abounds in bold metaphor ; it has even been observed 
that their very laws are often couched in it. What 
cannot imagination do, when it can thus clothe the 
statute-book with the verdure of poetry? Very beau- 
tiful certainly are many of the expressions in the 
Scandinavian laws ; as that, for example, which forbids 
trespass on the open and unguarded field, " inasmuch 
as it hath the hedge for its wall, and heaven for its 
roof;" or that other which enforces the same law 
against trespassers, by describing the field " as under 
God's lock." 

The poetry with which all literature commences, is 
not poetry in substance merely, but in form; it is 
metrical. It is an if young fancy, revelling in happy 
sensation and stimulated by natural passion, broke 



Prose Composition. 179 

out like the birds into spontaneous melody; or as if, 
to use the language of Milton, she 

" fed on thoughts, which voluntary moved 

Harmonious numbers." 

For the priority, not only of poetry in some shape. 
but of verse, to prose, many other reasons might be 
assigned, if this were the place for it. In the infancy 
of civilisation, in the absence, not merely of the 
printing-press, but of any generally understood methods 
of fixing and transmitting thought, composition would 
be a rarity and luxury : copies (even if the art of 
writing were known) would be few, and few could 
read them. Composition must, therefore, be in such 
a form as would best aid memory and facilitate trans- 
mission ; and verse is the best expedient that can be 
devised for attaining both these objects. Xor is this all ; 
as the end of poetry considered as a species of com- 
position is delight, it was natural to combine upon it 
all the elements of delight ; to invest it with the zone 
of Venus — fraught with every possible attraction ; and 
amongst not the least of these must be reckoned a 
metrical arrangement. This also more easily admitted 
the superadded charm of Music. 

The interval between poetry and prose, as two 
species of composition, has varied in different ages and 
amongst different nations, though it has of course 
always been great. 



180 Prose Composition. 

If we compare classical and modern literature, we 
shall find reasons for inferring that between poetry 
and prose the chasm was yet wider amongst the 
ancients than with us. This at first sight seems con- 
trary to obvious fact ; inasmuch as our poets generally 
submit to one restraint, and that a very onerous one, 
of which the Ancients knew nothing, — that is, rhynie. 
Nevertheless, either from the notions they entertained 
of the very different qualifications of mind which the 
two severally required, or from the refined metrical 
laws which their taste imposed on verse, or from both, 
it would seem that the two species of compositions 
were thought by them even wider apart than with us. 
And this would appear to be confirmed by a curious 
circumstance, which has perhaps hardly received suffi- 
cient attention from critics, that there is scarcely a 
name in Greek or Roman literature which has in any 
considerable degree distinguished itself in both forms 
of composition ; as if the Ancients had come to the 
conclusion either that the two were so totally distinct 
as to require in each a genius exclusively adapted to 
it, or that the difficulties of obtaining mastery in both 
were so great, that the aspirant to the double honour 
must content himself with less than the fame he might 
promise himself by undivided devotion to either. If 
Cicero wrote a few verses, they assuredly added 
nothing to his reputation, and one luckless jingling 
line, provokingly immortalised in the satire of Juvenal, 



Prose Composition. 1 8 1 

has been a standing joke against him in all ages.* 
Though Plato's writings overflow with the essence of 
poetry, and though his earliest compositions were 
poetical even in form, history does not record that he 
wrote anything in that way (except perhaps a single 
epigram) which satisfied his contemporaries, and 
certainly does record that he did not satisfy himself. 
In general the prose writers and the poets of Antiquity 
seem to have been as distinct as the poets and the 
painters, and for the most part punctiliously avoided 
invading each other's province. 

Amongst the moderns the case is altered. We 
have numerous examples of men who have almost 
equally distinguished themselves in prose and verse. 
Some diminution of power there may be — except 
perhaps in the rarest cases, must be — in such feats, so 
long as it remains true that man will do that best 
which he makes his single and paramount object, and 
cannot achieve many things so well as he can achieve 
one. But it must be confessed, in relation to the pre- 
sent case, that many examples prove that the diminu- 
tion of power is so slight as to be scarcely appreciable. 

The contrast between ancient and modern literature 
in this respect is indeed somewhat less, when we reflect 

* Tacitus (or the author, whoever he be, of the treatise " De 
Oratoribus "), while speaking with deserved contempt of Cicero's 
poetic efforts, slyly says that Caesar also had composed verses, 
but that he had had better luck, inasmuch as few people had 
ever seen them ! 



1 82 Prose Composition. 

that, for many subjects which most appropriately find 
their expression in poetry, we have whole classes of 
imaginative compositions unknown to the ancients 
— as, for example, the prose-romance and novel ; in 
which therefore it is not so wonderful that a poet, if 
he attempts them, should excel. Still the instances of 
authors who have written poetry of a high order, and 
at the same time distinguished themselves in depart- 
ments of prose literature less allied to poetry than 
those I have just specified, are sufficiently numerous 
to show us that the Greeks and Romans entertained 
very different notions on the subject from our own ; 
different, either because the two species of composi- 
tion — unlike as they always are — were separated by a 
still wider interval then than now ; or because pre- 
cedent and custom had restricted the ancient writers 
to the one or the other ; or because they more rigidly 
applied the principle of the " division of labour," for 
the purpose of securing the most perfect results in 
every branch of intellectual effort. 

Some critics have made it a question whether it is 
possible for a poet to write good prose at ail ; — and 
a very able one, who does not go quite so far, asks, 
"Whence, then, the fact that few great poets have 
succeeded as prose writers ?" Yet a glance at the 
history of modern literature would suggest more than 
a doubt as to whether this be a fact. It is true that 
we may here and there see a man of so poetical a 



Prose Composition. 183 

temperament in general or so exclusively adapted to 
some special branch of the art, — the lyrical, for 
example, — that he cannot comply gracefully with the 
severe requirements of prose ; or one whose imagi- 
nation is so fertile or so sublime that poetry forms at 
all events the most appropriate vehicle of his concep- 
tions ; or one so accustomed to write in metre that 
even his ordinary prose style perpetually reminds you 
of the measured march and cadence of verse, — just as 

I we may see persons so accustomed to a certain move- 
ment of body that even in their ordinary gait they 
may be said rather to dance than to walk. But these 
are exceptions to the rule. In general, the most 
splendid poetical powers of invention and imagery 
may not only find ample scope in the more refined or 
elevated species of imaginative prose-composition, but 

\ are so imperatively required there in order to attain 
the highest excellence, that if they be but conjoined 

j: with that strong sense which the great Roman critic 
represents as the basis of all good writing, the poet 

' need not be afraid that he shall not " succeed as a 
prose-writer." 

At all events, it is idle to speculate in the face of 

i facts. The prose of Cowley and of Dryden — that of 

I the one better than his poetry, that of the other equal 
to it ; the prose of Milton, which though it has palpable 
defects, yet has also transcendent excellences; the prose 
of Cowper and Gray, whose letters justly rank amongst 



184 Prose Composition. 

the finest specimens of composition in the whole com- 
pass of English literature ; the prose of Southey, Walter 
Scott, and Byron, all of whom have written prose admi- 
rably ; to say nothing of Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and 
others in Germany, — can hardly leave a doubt that 
poetry and prose, both of high order, may flow from 
the same pen. 

While it may be true that there are structural differ- 
ences of mind which in some cases would limit a great 
genius to either the one or the other, these examples 
are surely sufficient to show that it is not impossible to 
excel in both ; and that there must therefore have 
been other reasons for that sheer line of demarcation 
^ which the ancients made between them. 

Michaelis in one of his acute notes on " Lowth's 
Lectures on Hebrew Poetry," doubts whether it is 
possible for a truly great poet ever to become a truly 
great orator, or vice versa. But he who reads the 
speech over the dead body of Caesar, which Shakspeare 
puts into Mark Antony's mouth may perhaps be dis- 
posed to doubt, with Whately, whether he who w T as 
the greatest of dramatists, might not also have proved, 
under other circumstances, the greatest of orators ; 
and assuredly those who are familiarly acquainted 
with the prose writings of Milton, need not be told 
that he possessed in the highest perfection that great 
element of the highest style of oratory which the Greeks 
called " Seu/or^s," but which in our language wants 



Prose Composition. 185 

a name, — consisting of argument " wrought in fire" — 
the product of an intellect all aglow, molten, as it were, 
with vehement passion. On the other hand, it is 
impossible to read Jeremy Taylor without feeling that 
he might have been a great poet. To borrow an 
expression I have used elsewhere, he speaks the 
language of poetry by a sort of necessity of his 
nature. He resembles those full clouds of spring 
which shake out their fertilizing showers with every 
breath of wind that stirs them ; the slightest movement 
of his mind is enough to detach the images from his 
ever-teeming fancy. No matter what his subject, he is 
sure to adorn it. Even over the most bleak and 
wintry wastes of casuistry or metaphysical theology, he 
passes like the very spirit of the spring, and all that is 
rich and beautiful in foliage and flower puts forth at 
his bidding. 

Nature everywhere exhibits exhaustless variety in 
her products ; it is not the least singular example of 
her resources that she has impressed endless diver- 
sities of style and manner, no less on writers of prose 
than on the writers of poetry, though it requires a 
keen analytic skill always to determine in what the 
difference consists. Not only are there the generic 
distinctions of schools : there are no two individuals 
of any considerable originality, in whose styles there 
is not as distinct a character as in their handwritings. 
It seems, at first sight, marvellous. Though the points 



1 86 Prose Composition. 

in which any two great prose-writers resemble one 
another, must be unspeakably more numerous and 
important than those in which they differ ; though 
from the writings of either, the critic can extract exem- 
plifications of all the laws of his art, — yet are there 
never two indistinguishably alike ! It is with minds as 
with faces ; obvious in their general resemblance, the 
diversities by which one is discriminated from another 
are as obvious. Such is the miracle which nature has 
everywhere achieved — that of reconciling essential 
unity with infinite variety. Minute original diversities 
of mind, whatever the general similarity, — minute 
differences of education, though its general system and 
methods may be the same, — and the circumstances of 
external life, which are never quite the same, give to 
the fruits of every mind a tinct of the soil and the clime 
which produced them. It is with varieties of style as 
with varieties of handwriting. There are great re- 
semblances in these last ; family resemblances, resem- 
blances from learning of the same master, and resem- 
blances which result from unconscious imitation ; but 
they are all distinguishably different, and are in effect 
as unlike as they are alike. The diversities in prose 
are, indeed, somewhat less obvious than those in 
poetry ; and sometimes (as in purely didactic com- 
position) require a practised ear and skill in critical 
analysis, to detect and express them. Sometimes they 
cannot be expressed — so minute and subtle are they 



Prose Composition. 187 

but, where the compositions have any signal merit, 
they exist, and are felt, even if too refined to admit 
of being characterized in language. It is here much 
the same as in music, where every one feels and 
acknowledges the different style of composition in 
Handel, Haydn, and Mozart, though not one in a 
thousand could specify those differences, or describe 
them in words. Yet the difference is felt so strongly 
that an accomplished musician will scarcely mistake 
their compositions, even on a first hearing. But the 
difference between their strains, great as it is, is not 
greater than that between the prose of Milton and that 
of Johnson, between the prose of Burke and that of 
Addison ; and the critic who hears any considerable 
passages from these will be as little liable to mistake 
in referring the compositions to their proper authors. 

A novice in criticism is apt to underrate greatly the 
interval, in point of merit, between different prose-com- 
positions. He is apt to think that "plain prose," as he 
calls it, is much alike in all cases — standing on much 
the same level; that it may be considered a sort of any- 
how mode of expressing our thoughts, or that it is 
simply a mode of expressing which is not metrical. He 
is little aware what a highly complex and artificial 
thing the best prose is after all. He little dreams of 
the toil and thought usually expended on composition 
before it assumes even an approximation to the ideal 
of the author, or before the artist will permit a 



1 88 Prose Composition. 

stranger to enter his studio. It may be true that apt 
thoughts will usually suggest apt words ; but how 
often, on reconsideration, are those words exchanged 
for words which are found to be still more apt ; how 
many changes of construction have been submitted to, 
in order to secure greater harmony or greater com- 
pactness : how many erasures, interlineations, and 
substitutions, have intervened between the first rough 
copy and the last printer's revise ; how many correc- 
tions have been made in successive transcripts and 
successive proofs ; how long has been the chase after 
a fugitive synonym ; how have the cells of memory 
been ransacked and their contents tumbled out for 
one forgotten word ! There is scarcely any limit to 
the improvements which a correct ear and a delicate 
taste, if time be given, may suggest; scarcely any 
point at which an author will acknowledge that he can 
effect no more. Johnson, when he had elaborately 
revised his early and often hasty papers in the 
" Rambler," — and it must be acknowledged that they 
stood in need of it, — said to a lady who asked whether 
he could now improve any of them, " Yes, madam, I 
could make even the best of them better still." Burke, 
it is said, used to cover his manuscript with inter- 
lineations and alterations ; and of some parts of his 
celebrated " Reflections" saw half-a-dozen proofs before 
he could satisfy himself. And he might have seen as 
many more before he failed to detect something which 



Prose Composition. 189 

lie wished unsaid, or without having something sug- 
gested he would still like to say. Pascal, it is said, 
sometimes expended not less than twenty days on the 
perfecting and revisal of one of his immortal " Pro- 
vincial Letters;" justifying the language of M. Faugere, 
that revision, with this great writer, was, as it were, a 
" second creation." 

The celebrated Junius was almost as fastidious, and 
Robert Hall gave as one reason for his writing so little, 
that he could so rarely approach the realization of 
his own beau-ideal of a perfect style. Few things are 
more suggestive or instructive to a young writer than 
the inspection of fac-similes of the blotted and inter- 
lined originals of some of the celebrated passages of 
the great masters of style. 

While it is true that one of the very excellences of 
jDrose consists in the entire absence of anything that 
shall even suggest the thought of metre, yet it has its 
characteristic music no less than poetry itself; not that, 
indeed, of the lyre or the lute — of measured movement 
and artificial cadence ;. but the wild and free, yet ever- 
pleasant and ever-varied, music of nature ; of the 
whispering winds and rolling floods ; the pathetic wail 
or passionate gusts of the ^Eolian harp ; such music 
as is heard by the mountain streams or in the leafy 
woods of summer. Not less than poetry, it has its 
sweet and equable or its impetuous and rapid flow ; 
its full and majestic harmonies ; its abrupt transitions — 



190 Prose Composition. 

discords which make sweeter concord ; its impressive 
pauses; its graceful, though not regularly recurring, 
cadences. 

Such are the abstract capabilities of prose, though 
they are not always exhibited or often demanded 
from it. In general, no doubt, we demand in poetry a 
more exact attention to harmony of expression and a 
more elaborate and exquisite adaptation of the words 
to the thoughts. The connection between them is, 
in fact, more vital and indissoluble. Alter the words 
or the arrangement ever so little, and half the 
charm of a fine stanza is gone. It is true that 
this is partially the case with harmonious prose ; but 
it is not the case to anything like the same extent, or 
in half so many instances. To the poet's thoughts we 
may apply Milton's description of the union between 
music and poetry ; they are 

" Married to immortal verse." 

The strain of the poet may be compared with the 
strain of the musician, for the one as essentially 
depends on the language, as the other on the instru- 
ment which awakes it. The lay of the minstrel is 
spoilt, if but a chord of the lyre be broken. 

Though the connection between thought and ex- 
pression is not so close in prose as in poetry, it is still, 
in all prose of a high order, most intimate ; and the 
contrast between the best and the feeblest prose- 
compositions may be aptly illustrated by the image 



Prose Composition, 191 

which Campbell, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, has 
employed, to mark the distinction between composi- 
tions in the classical languages and in our own. 
Speaking of the want of inflections in English, which 
deprives us of that varied collocation of words ad- 
missible in the languages of Greece and Rome, 
and also necessitates that abundant employment of 
particles, — for example, of prepositions and conjunc- 
tions, — which so often loads our style, he remarks, 
•• Our modern languages may be compared to the art 
of carpentry in its rudest state, when the union of the 
materials employed by the artisan could be effected 
only by the help of those external and coarse imple- 
ments, pins, nails, and cramps. The ancient languages 
resemble the same art in its most improved state, 
after the invention of dovetail joints, grooves, and 
mortices : all the principal junctions being effected by 
forming properly the extremities or terminations of 
the pieces to be joined." The similitude is certainly 
as apt if applied to examples of the best and worst 
prose in the same language. 

In the instructive and amusing papers, inserted in 
Good Words, on " The Queen's English,'' we were 
warned of the danger, in these times of universal 
authorship and extensive international communication, 
of corrupting our noble language by incautiously 
adopting and circulating the impurities of diction, 
construction, and idiom, which are extensively afloat 



ig2 Prose Composition. 

in the literature of the day. Let these once obtain 
general currency, and by the laws of language, there 
is no longer any effectual appeal against them. The 
same theme was instructively dilated upon in an 
admirable article in the Edinburgh Review, July, 
1864; and the dangers against which the writer 
warns us are certainly considerable. 

Perhaps it may not be superfluous to remind the 
young writer, that if he would attain more than cor- 
rectness, or even a fluent facility ; if he would impress 
upon his compositions that individuality without 
which they cannot live, he must ever keep in mind 
that prose may be possessed of nearly as various ex- 
cellence as poetry; and as much requires sedulous 
self-culture, profound meditation of the subject-matter, 
familiar acquaintance with the best models (models 
sufficiently numerous to prevent that mannerism which 
results from unconscious imitation, if there be too 
familiar converse with some one), and that "limae 
labor," that patient revision, which is the condition 
of all excellence, literary or otherwise. Perhaps, con- 
sidering the immense mass of written matter which is 
every day given to the w r orld (and, horribile dictu ! 
annually covering, if it were spread out, thousands of 
acres of printed thought), we ought rather to wonder 
that so much rises above mediocrity, than that so 
much falls below it. 



'93 



VII. 
ON PUBLIC EXECUTIONS. 

HP HE hour is surely at hand when England must 

abolish either public executions, or capital 

punishments. If the latter, of course the former will 

vanish too ; but if capital punishments are to be 

retained, public executions must, in my judgment, 

cease. No inconsiderable party, as we all know, 

vehemently denounce all capital penalties ; and one of 

their most plausible arguments is derived from the 

enormous scandals and pernicious results of public 

executions. That these spectacles are attended by no 

advantages that can counterbalance their evils may 

be, I think, clearly shown ; nor by any advantage 

t at all which may not be better attained in another 

j way. 

The nation has been slowly feeling its way to a con- 
clusion on this subject; but, if I do not greatly 
mistake, there are symptoms that it is now rapidly 
making up its mind. This is principally due to the 

o 



194 On Public Executions. 

discussions of the public press ; and more especially 
to the painfully vivid photographs which its " Corre- 
spondents • " have given us of the characteristics and 
incidents of execution scenes, for the last few years. 
These gentlemen have, for a few short hours, con- 
sented to visit hell, in order to reveal its horrors to 
the folks above ground, — who else could form no con- 
ception of them. Without their aid the mass of the 
people (who never frequent such spectacles), would 
not have had their minds sufficiently possessed of the 
facts, to form a judgment. But they must be stone 
blind and deaf too, if they cannot see the blasting 
vision which the Press flashed in their eyes, and hear 
the appalling sounds it thundered in their ears, at the 
execution of the late Francis Miiller. It may be that 
the thing itself was not much worse than in the days 
of our forefathers ; and certainly we may gather from 
the pages of our older novelists, as Fielding and 
Smollett, and from the delineations of Hogarth, that 
the gallows was then, as now, a very questionable ally 
of the school or the pulpit, in spite of the encomiums 
in that behalf sometimes bestowed upon it. But 
Fielding and Smollett belonged to a past and less 
fastidious age ; and many took it for granted that the 
more hideous features of such scenes had been at 
least softened, if they had not vanished with the pro- 
cession to Tyburn. The Pre-Raphaelite pictures which 
the press has, of late years, given of a public hanging, 



On Public Exectitions. 195 

have dissipated any such illusions, so far as they 
existed • and have convinced the millions who never 
visit such a spectacle that the evil is all unchanged, or 
rather looks worse, — more ghastly and horrible, — in 
the light and by the contrast of a higher general 
civilization ; nay, probably is worse. 

This last, indeed, may be reasonably inferred, 
whether we reason a priori, or look at facts. As for the 
latter ; probably there never was such a picture of a 
veritable Pandemonium, — of such utter and brutal 
insensibility to the tragedy of sin and death then 
enacting, but which those who looked on madly 
mistook for a comedy, — of such cool, deliberate 
election of evil in the very presence of the Nemesis 
which avenged it (as though that very circumstance 
gave vice and crime a distinct flavour and relish), 
as was exhibited in the reports of the daily papers, 
and especially in that most powerful letter in the 
Times on the occasion of Miiller's execution. 

Never perhaps was there a case in which the bolt of 
Divine Justice, — zigzag though it might for a moment, 
like the lightning which is its emblem, — more fully 
smote and shivered its victim ; never was there a case 
which better exemplified the impotence of the crimi- 
nal to anticipate and secure all the unsuspected 
avenues by which his guilt may steal into light, or so 
to efface the scent of it, as to baffle the strong hounds 
of justice and prevent their getting on his track : 



196 On Public Executions. 

never was there a case in which heaven and earth, — 
the laws of Providence, and the resources of human 
science which it impressed into its service, — more 
visibly conspired for the detection and punishment of 
guilt. Though the doomed man " took the wings of 
the morning and fled to the uttermost parts of the 
sea," yet the stronger wing of justice had outflown him, 
and he found the Avenger already lying in wait for 
him in the very place of his refuge ! And yet — and 
yet — that very hour of his execution, did the " syna- 
gogue of Satan " that assembled round the walls of 
Newgate, on November 14th, choose as a fitting time 
in which to show their contempt for all these " signs 
in the heavens above, and on the earth beneath."* 
It was as if the men were no longer — as men 

* I justify such words by two or three sentences from the eye 
and ear witness of the Times-. — "It was," says he, "such a 
concourse as I hope may never again be assembled either for 
such a spectacle, or for the gratification of such lawless ruffian- 
ism as yesterday found scope around the gallows There 

can be only one thing more difficult than describing this crowd, 

and that is to forget it None but those who looked down 

upon the crowd of yesterday, will ever believe in the leisurely, 
open, broad-cast manner in which garrotting and highway 

robbery were carried on Such were the open pastimes 

of the mob from daylight till near the hour of execution." " The 
impression, however," speaking of the silence at the moment of 
execution itself, "if any it was, beyond that of mere curiosity, 
did not last for long ; and before the slow, slight vibration of the 
body had well ended, violence, laughing, oaths, obscene conduct, 
and still more filthy language, reigned around the gallows far 
and near." 



On Ptiblic Executions. 197 

generally are — befooled by a miscalculation of the 
future and blinded by present temptation ; but as if, 
with eyes wide open, they had deliberately said, 
" Evil ! be thou my good !" and were determined to 
snatch a moment's gross sin, even with the flames of 
hell itself flaring and glowing in their faces. It may 
be surmised, perhaps, that the bulk of them so 
behaved because they did not believe there is any hell 
at all. Not believe there is a hell ? They were in it ; 
they made part of it, at that moment ; for what hell 
can even a Dante or a Milton imagine worse than to 
be condemned to dwell in the midst of that seething 
caldron of obscenity, blasphemy, malignity, of all 
unutterable lawlessness and wickedness ? Utterly im- 
potent seems the conclusion that there can be no such 
place as hell, while there are such scenes on earth ; or 
that the devil must be a nonentity, while we see so 
many demons incarnate : differing apparently from the 
more ethereal spirit of evil only by adding the grossest 
sensuality to every other form of lawlessness, as if to 
make good the oft-discredited miracle of the swine 
with the devils in them ! That most painfully vivid 
description by the Times correspondent is, if true 
(and it bore all marks of fidelity to facts), worse than 
any preceding page w T e ever read even in the annals of 
the gallows. 

But that these scenes (if their horrors be not 
diminished by an advance of morals and religion that 



198 On Public Executions. 

shall be more than abreast of civilisation) will become 
more and more odious, may be inferred from the 
reason of the thing : they will not only look more 
hideous by contrast with civilisation, but be so \ for 
whereas (as shall be proved) these spectacles, espe- 
cially in such an age as ours, must by inevitable 
necessity, — by force of an obvious law of moral affi- 
nities, — attract to them only the very worst elements 
of society, so those worst elements must needs be 
worse than can be found in a ruder and more primitive 
community. No men are so lost to good as those 
whose intellect has been developed only to become 
the bondslave of the passions; who have borrowed 
from civilisation little but the art of masking evil, 
and of converting knowledge into cunning; who 
superadd to the dangerous, but still blind and honest, 
ferocity of the brute, somewhat of the subtlety 
and malignity of a fiend. Civilisation and know- 
ledge are themselves, like logic and rhetoric, simply 
instrumental ; and are indifferent to the moral and 
immoral uses to which they may be put. But they 
are, at least, the more natural allies of goodness 
and virtue ; and when divorced from them, and 
wedded to vice and crime, form a solecism in nature. 
When they are so conjoined, they breed forms of 
evil such as the poor savage can, happily, never 
aspire to emulate. It is as though one added the 
wings of the eagle to the venom of the serpent, or 



On Ptiblic Executions. 199 

armed the jaw of the lion with the fang of the rattle- 
snake. 

Both from fact and from the reason of the thing, 
therefore, it may be inferred that these spectacles have 
grown, and must still grow, worse instead of better. 
And can England, for very shame, endure their 
continuance? Will she periodically permit in her 
capital and in her great cities a spectacle which by 
necessity of nature (as will be shown) calls forth from 
congenial darkness, from every obscure den and 
hiding-place where they lie scattered and ordinarily 
latent, every loathsome reptile form of vice and crime' 
to crawl and swelter in the blaze of day ? Will she 
persist in every now and then raking all the social 
ordure into one rotting heap, the pestilential reek of 
which shames the light and poisons the air, and 
reminds us of the apocalyptic vision of the smoke that 
issued from the bottomless pit? Will she continue 
thus to collect all that is lost to shame, as if on 
purpose to enable it to defy authority, to mock at 
decency and modesty, to jeer at everything venerable 
or awful, and to seize that very moment in which the 
Law is vindicating its claims, for showing contempt of 
all law, human and divine, by breaking it at the 
gallows' foot? We have heard a great deal lately 
about the utilisation of our sewage : we know not how 
this sewage is to be utilised ; but assuredly to let all 
the filth of London drain into the Thames is a far less 



200 On Public Executions. 

disgrace to our civilisation than to persist in making 
the Old Bailey a periodical cesspool for all the moral 
abominations of London. 

We are told that nothing in "the shape of decency 
or modesty or respectability " appeared in the crowd, 
that was not immediately victimised, insulted, " bon- 
neted," robbed, and in case of resistance (which, 
however, was utterly hopeless, — as though the whole 
thing was designed to be the triumph of lawlessness, 
and not the vindication of law), knocked down and 
brutally maltreated. It is not very easy, perhaps, to 
imagine " Modesty, Decency, or Respectability " 
taking their pleasure then and there ; and one almost 
feels inclined to say, that if they did, they richly 
deserved their fate. The best that can be said for the 
best there, is, that they went to gratify a peculiar gout, 
an eccentric appetite for "game," not only "high," 
but putrid. Now if men will have such venison, even 
though they cook it by hell fire, they may be thankful 
if they only scorch their fingers. 

For the inestimable service conferred by the press 
on this occasion, I think the public deeply indebted ; 
and I cannot but hope that the scene of November 
T4th, and the comments upon it, will soon bring 
public sentiment on this subject to flood tide. 

I was anxious to see what comment the Times 
would make on this letter of its correspondent. In 
one half of the article I entirely concur, namely, that 



On Public Executions. 201 

the scene, painful as it was, did not prove that capital 
punishments ought to be abolished : for which 
opinion, nevertheless, as it truly said, it would be 
made an argument. But I must confess, that the 
other half, in which it seemed to argue that, since it 
was necessary to retain capital punishment, it was a 
just corollary that public executions must be retained 
also (all such scenes notwithstanding), by no means 
convinced me. It does not seem to me that the 
alternative offered is the only one ; and if we may 
judge by the recent " presentments " of the Grand 
Jury for Lancashire, and many other symptoms, a 
large portion of the public is coming to the same 
conclusion. 

But before proceeding to canvass this point I 
should like to say a few words on the certainty, in the 
nature of things, that public executions must be pro- 
ductive of evil, of evil always, and of evil only. 

The arguments of those who plead for the entire 
abolition of capital punishment are certainly not with- 
out weight and plausibility; though I cannot but 
think they derive their force from extrinsic considera- 
tions (as for example, among others, the scandal of 
public executions), rather than from any intrinsic 
validity. Assuredly it is not possible to attach much 
importance to that of Voltaire, — that " when a man is 
once hanged, he is good for nothing ;" for unhappily 



202 On Public Executions. 

he is often worth nothing before. But though the 
arguments for the abolition may not be very cogent, 
the condition of public opinion may make them 
irresistible. As I said in the Edinburgh Review,- 
twenty years ago — " It is very possible that an im- 
pression of the inexpediency of inflicting the punish- 
ment in question may diffuse itself so widely, as to 
render it necessary for the legislature to abolish it. 
That time is possibly yet distant ; but should it come, 
the experiment must be tried. Anything is better 
than an uncertainty of obtaining convictions. A 
milder punishment certainly inflicted^ is better than 
one which would be more effectual, if it cannot be 
inflicted at all; to say nothing of the demoralizing 
effect of the spectacle of juries deliberately violating 
one or other of two imagined obligations. In this 
point of view, any system of legislation must accom- 
modate itself to the actual state of the people, nor 
presume to be in advance of those who administer it"* 
It is therefore of importance, if capital punishments 
are to be retained at all, that all plausible objections 
against them should be removed. One of these is the 
enormous scandal of public executions ; such, indeed, 
that if these could not be abolished without abolishing 
capital punishments too, I should be instantly con- 
verted into an advocate of the latter measure. The 
evil, if any evil followed, could at best be but tempo- 

* Edinburgh Review, July, 1847. 



On Public Executions. 203 

rary ; for if it were found, by the resistless logic of 
statistics, that murders increased upon us. there is not 
a philanthropist, however sentimental or fanatical, who 
would not call aloud for the re-enactment of the 
capital penalty. As long as it is supposed that no 
more murders would be committed than at present, 
those who have no eyes to see anything but guilt and 
its wretchedness, and are blind to the innocent 
wretchedness which guilt has caused, flatter them- 
selves that life would not be less secure than it is now. 
But if they found themselves mistaken, even they 
would yield to facts. There is not a man, surely, of 
so perverse a sympathy with crime, so misanthropically 
philanthropic, as deliberately to consent that the 
innocent should have their throats cut rather than 
that the murderer should be hanged. 

But I apprehend that the time is not come, when 
we are called upon to consider any such alternative as 
that of the suppression of capital punishment alto- 
gether. While people are pretty well agreed that 
it should be restricted to cases of clear murder, or 
of such crimes as involve constructive murder of the 
coolest kind, — they yet are also pretty well agreed 
that in such cases this punishment should be retained, 
as the only absolute security to society against those 
who have once broken into the sanctuary of life. 
They maintain that such a penalty is clearly sanc- 
tioned by the law of God \ they know it is defended 



204 On Public Executions. 

by almost every jurist of eminence ; they believe it to 
be fully justified, and indeed necessitated, by the 
interests of humanity. 

And if society must have an absolute guarantee that 
a murderer shall do no more mischief, I do not see 
that there is any difference worth speaking of, between 
those who would continue and those who would 
abolish capital punishment. For if these last would 
in fact take absolute security on behalf of society 
against the repetition of the crime, then the only 
conceivable alternative of capital punishment is that 
of inflicting solitary imprisonment for life ; and this, 
in fact, comes, in the generality of cases, but in a 
less merciful way, to the same thing. It is in truth 
capital punishment of the most hideous kind. 

All a priori reasoning, physiological science, ex- 
periment, alike show that such a life soon becomes a 
living death; it is attended by the gradual and not 
very tardy extinction of the functions and faculties 
by which alone man can be truly said to live at all. 
You cannot reverse all the conditions of human 
existence, cut off man from all the vitalizing influences 
of the society of his fellows, doom him to the absolute 
monotony and silence of a prison cell, without, in 
the majority of cases, superinducing insanity or 
idiotism. You can no more do it, without touching 
the vital functions, than you can keep the eye in 
perpetual darkness without destroying the power of 



On Public Executions. 205 

vision. Under such a punishment, those very facul- 
ties of man's moral and intellectual nature, for the 
sake of which alone this equivocal mercy is contended 
for, become useless. The difference is one simply as 
to the mode of death ; whether it is better to die by 
an acute or chronic disease. It is a choice between 
killing by inches, and killing at once ; between laying 
the axe at the root of the tree, or lopping off its 
branches, barking and '"girdling" it, and leaving it to 
perish by gradual decay. To condemn man to abso- 
lute and perpetual solitude, is to doom him to that last 
calamity which Dean Swift so dreaded for himself 
when he stood gazing at a tree whose upper parts were 
dead : "I shall be like that tree," said he, " I shall die 
a-top." To kill man thus is indeed worse than simply 
killing him ; for it is to bury him while he is alive. 

For these reasons, an advocate of capital punish- 
ment, in the extreme case of murder, may justly con- 
tend for it, not merely because it is the most just, 
or the most severe, or the most dreaded, — though it 
is so (to twv (faofiepwv </>o/5epojraroy, as an ancient said), 
— but because it is a more merciful penalty than 
would be inflicted by those who, without meaning 
death, do really decree it, — -only sentencing to a slow 
fire, instead of the rope or the guillotine. While I 
respect that comprehensive philanthropy which com- 
passionates suffering of all kinds, I cannot for a 
moment admit that this mode of treating murderers 



206 On P 2tb lie Executions. 

would be the wisest expression of it, or at all more 
merciful than hanging. This philanthropy does not look 
far enough. It can see the gallows, and it sees nothing 
else. That life should be taken by the hangman in a 
moment is in its eyes a dreadful thing \ but the horror 
of taking life by small doses of a subtle poison, of 
letting the life slowly ebb away, — this it does not 
picture to itself. But to him who has the imagination 
adequately to conceive it, there will be no comparison 
between the gallows and the solitary cell for life ; 
between instantaneous extinction and a perennial 
death. I for one say, therefore, Give the murderer, 
while his faculties are still vigorous, what time you 
will for repentance, and all needful instruction and 
exhortation to bring him to it; but in mercy spare 
him that long decay to w T hich you must doom him, if 
you must exact for society effectual guarantees against 
further mischief, and yet will not hang him. Let him 
not, like Swift's tree, " begin to die a-top." 

But to return to the subject of public executions. 
The analogies which were formerly resorted to (and 
not altogether abandoned yet), to prove the benefits 
that may result from public executions, may without 
difficulty be shown to be altogether fallacious. It is 
sometimes said, " Does not the schoolmaster, now 
and then at all events, summon the entire school to 
witness the punishment of some notorious and signal 



On Public Executions. 207 

offender ?" Very true ; but not to mention that 
exceptio probat regnlam, and that a humane and wise 
schoolmaster generally punishes privately, as con- 
ceiving that it will be likely to have a better effect 
both on the delinquent and his companions, is there 
any analogy at all in the case ? 

If the whole public could be compelled to witness 
public executions, then the analogy would be com- 
plete. But, to make out the parallel in the case 
chosen for illustration, what ought we to find ? What 
ought to be the conduct of a schoolmaster when he 
flogs a boy? Why, he ought to tell the urchins, 
'- That it was not compulsory on any of them to 
attend ; but that if any of them would like to attend, 
they were welcome to do so 1" And what would be 
the consequence ? Why, if any of them felt a morbid 
curiosity for dreadful sights, or a dangerous love of 
strong sensations, or an odious love of seeing suffer- 
ing, or a more odious delight in inflicting it, or lack 
of kindliness, or a hope of seeing authority bravely 
defied, or a wish to encourage an incorrigible offender 
by sympathy, — such, but such alone, would be there. 
You would be sure to find there the young Domitian, 
who was fond of stripping flies of their legs or wings, 
or thrusting pins through cockchafers, and who was 
diligently qualifying himself by such essays for a 
graduation in deeper cruelty. You would have the 
boy who was himself always getting into scrapes, 



208 On Public Executions. 

who had often been under the dread " Flagellifer * 
himself, and who would feel a sort of malicious 
consolation in seeing another under the same punish- 
ment. You would have the young despot whose 
pastime it was to play tyrannical tricks upon the 
younger boys, and who delighted in their terrors at 
his approach ; to see a companion flogged would be 
an enjoyment of a similar and stronger kind. You 
would have him who was a ringleader in every act 
of rebellion, and who denounced all just authority 
as tyranny : he would go for the purpose of seeing 
whether his companion would " die game ;" and, if 
opportunity offered, would encourage him beforehand 
(and perhaps by secret signals at the time) to a 
desperate resistance, or at all events a dogged forti- 
tude, and a noble resolution not to play the part of 
a sneaking penitent. You would have the boy who 
was himself in danger of the same punishment, or 
perhaps had been an accomplice in that very fault 
which provoked it, but who had not been detected ; — 
drawn to the sight by a. kind of horrible fascination, 
and drawn one step nearer to the crime, too, both 
by familiarity with the punishment and the fact that 
he knew it was possible to escape it ; but especially 
if he saw the chastisement, and the authority that 
ordained it, made the subject — as it would be in such 
a choice circle of spectators — of ribald jest or bullying 
defiance. And to make the parallel complete, if any 



On Public Executions. 209 

lad had a propensity to pilfer, you would probably 
have him taking that opportune moment of abstracted 
attention on the part of his companions, to exercise 
his youthful adroitness ! In a word, you would find 
that whatever in the school was base, selfish, hard- 
hearted, malignant, cruel, disposed to plot or to en- 
courage rebellion against authority, would be there ; 
and nothing but that. None who had the faintest 
tinct of good-nature, fine intellect, amiable temper, 
kindly sympathy, would ever dream of accepting so 
curious an invitation. Their attendance must be 
compulsory, if they are to come at all. 

It is possible, indeed (if all were compelled to be 
present), to conceive exceptional cases, in which the 
public punishment of some signal crime might do no 
harm, even if it did no good. But, not to insist that 
in general those who would be likely to be benefited 
by the spectacle— that is, who came with dispositions 
capable of instruction — would know their lesson very 
well without conning it at the gallows or the triangle, 
nothing can be more absurd than to make attendance 
optional, and so insure that only those shall be there 
who will not be benefited ! If any persons whatever 
be likely to be benefited, it is a necessary condition 
that they should be made to attend ; for nothing but a 
sense of duty or necessity will induce well-disposed 
people to go at all. Such people do not go to a 
hanging of free choice. 

p 



2 1 o On Public Executions, 

Now it need not be said that compulsory attend- 
ance at a public execution is utterly out of the 
question. 

So much for the analogy in question. The plan on 
which the public hangman gathers his spectators is 
just on such a principle as we have supposed our wise 
schoolmaster to act upon ! 

To all who like such sights, the legislature in effect 
says, " Come and see ; all you who dislike them, stay 
away." And the result is just what we might expect, 
and just what we find. 

Similar remarks apply to the case of military flog- 
ging, and of all public punishments. If all attend, 
the result is still perhaps problematical; for the 
natural horror of seeing extreme suffering — no matter 
what the crime committed — generally awakens, for 
the time at all events, such invincible and involuntary 
sympathy of pity and terror, that it drowns the sense 
of guilt in compassion. But if none came but those 
who chose to come, we know just what sort of people 
alone would come ; and the result would be the same 
as in the imagined school. Only those who were 
already hard-hearted, brutal, lawless, and cruel; at 
best, the victims of a morbid curiosity, and a love of 
strong sensations, — which in themselves are moral 
failings, and require to be checked, not indulged, else 
they infallibly lead to something worse, — would be 
there. The highest motive — and that would be low 



On Public Executions. 2 1 r 

enough — would be the wish to see with how much 
fortitude extreme agony could be borne, or with how 
much bravado just authority might be defied. 

And this reasoning, duly considered, shows the 
gross practical fallacy in which the very conception 
of the possible benefits of public executions (if at- 
tendance be optional) originates. It involves a 
fundamental mistake in the philosophy of human 
nature. Voluntarily to gaze on suffering — when there 
is nothing to be done, and when no active effort is to 
be made to relieve it ; or where there is no overbearing 
law which compels us. though it be painful, to en- 
counter the sight as an unwelcome necessity, — as, for 
example, when a physician or surgeon looks with a 
dry eye on the agonies of his patient, or a school or a 
regiment is impartially compelled (like it or not) to 
witness what makes the heart shudder. — is always and 
simply a symptom of a hard heart, and helps further to 
harden it. All voluntary sight of suffering, except 
on the conditions of necessity or benevolence, implies 
previous cruelty and callousness of nature : or, if 
there be nothing more at first than a morbid curiosity. 
it is sure, if the thing be repeated, to pass into some- 
thing worse. We here see fearfully exemplified that law 
of human nature which Butler has done so much to 
make clear, though he was not the first who announced 
it ; for the germ of his observations may be found in 
Aristotle. But the principle itself is of the last im- 



2 1 2 On Public Executions, 

portance in relation to all education, and not least 
in relation to the subject now under consideration. 
It is this ; that all our passive emotions are weakened 
by repetition ; and yet of course follow the law of all 
our habits, and crave, if indulged, increasing frequency 
of gratification. Now, if they have led on to the 
strengthening of a correspondent practical habit 
(which such emotions seem principally designed to 
develop within us), this weakening is of little con- 
sequence. Thus the sight of suffering naturally ex- 
cites the emotion of pity ; and if that pity can and 
will do anything for the relief of the sufferer then it 
has answered its purpose ; for indeed " the heart is 
made better " by it. Nor does it matter that the 
mere emotion decays in vividness at each repetition, 
— even till a surgeon, for example, can perform an 
operation as coolly as he eats his breakfast, — if the 
practical habit of benevolence has strengthened in 
proportion • for this last will then prompt us, with 
far greater power than any passive emotion could, 
to do the offices of pity. A Howard may look upon 
scenes with a stoical composure, nay, with a seeming 
hard-heartedness, which at first dissolved him in tears, 
and set about the work of relieving them as if he were 
made of marble, while his benevolence all the while 
is growing stronger and deeper. And thus, too, a 
physician may look on a patient's death-bed, nay, 
on a thousand in a year, and be none the worse for it. 



On Public Executions. 213 

But if he who neither could nor would do anything 
for the relief of suffering, were continually thrusting 
himself into every dying man's chamber to which he 
could get access, for the mere purpose of prying 
into its horrors, — even though his motive at first 
might possibly be nothing worse than a morbid 
curiosity, — how would it fare with him? If he per- 
sisted in such an abominable propensity, if he pam- 
pered this " canine appetite " for the garbage of fancy, 
it is impossible that he should not exemplify the 
above law of our "passive emotions:" the habit would 
speedily generate something much worse than mere 
curiosity, would at last obliterate, by repetition, the 
capacity of pity, and, in a word, transform the man 
into a veritable ghoul. The mere fact that no good man 
would willingly look on sufferings except an imperious 
law or an instinct of benevolence made it a duty, 
however painful, at once condemns our present practice 
of gathering those, and those only, to the spectacle of 
public executions, who come of their own accord. It 
leaves us in no degree surprised that the gracious 
invitation should be responded to as it now is; it 
gives us just such an assemblage as might be ex- 
pected. All the scum and offscouring of society 
(barring an eccentric creature here and there who has 
a diseased fancy for " supping full of horrors," and 
who, like a late notorious person, would sooner go 
to an execution than a banquet) flock to the scene 



214 On Public Executions. 

as naturally as vulture to carrion. Is there anybody 
who can for a moment be imagined to have any 
justifiable motive for voluntarily going to such a 
spectacle, or any motive at all which does not make 
him odious ? If so, it is the man who can say (if any 
can say), " I am going to see this sight, honestly and 
sincerely, from no idle feeling of curiosity, still less 
from any cruel desire to gloat on suffering ; but that I 
may have my own heart more impressed with the 
dreadful effects of crime, and be better guarded 
against the possible temptations to commit it !" But 
is there one in a million of the spectators who could 
honestly say this ? And if he said it, is there one in 
ten millions who would believe him ? Would not 
every one say, " This worthy man, if he can truly say 
that he went to learn such lesson, had already learned 
it, and might have stayed away. His heart is already 
sufficiently guarded against temptation, in wishing to 
be guarded." 

But further \ if there be any force in the argument 
that public executions are calculated to impress the 
spectator with the terrible consequences of crime, and 
so deter him from its commission, then the same 
reasoning will apply to all penal inflictions. Why 
restrict it to capital punishment? Nay, one would 
think a fortiori that some other punishments, especially 
those in which much and prolonged corporeal suffer- 
ing is involved, might make a deeper and more 



On Public Executions, 1 1 5 

powerful impression than the transient convulsion, 
endured in silence and with covered face, of the poor 
wretch whose limbs quiver for a moment, and are then 
still for ever. It might be thought that the contortions 
and shrieks of a man under the lash would produce 
far more horror, — as indeed they ever will ; even such 
horror that none but one who is compelled to take 
part in such scenes — unless he be already utterly 
hard-hearted, or on the high road to it — can endure 
it ; horror, which in every one not so fortified, either 
by duty or by brutality, becomes uncontrollable agony. 
However, as far as this argument goes, it will certainly 
apply, if it apply at all, to all punishment. It follows 
therefore that we should throw our prison doors open- 
like our churches — for moral impression ; and in fact 
proceed just as we do at public executions ; that is, 
compel nobody, but invite all who have any taste for 
that sort of thing to inspect the prisoners during 
punishment \ to come and gaze with a curious, or 
philosophic, or edified mind at the criminals on the 
treadmill (as at squirrels in their cage), or under the 
tortures of the lash ! 

Yet, strange to say ! if the reasoning which represents 
public executions as an instructive spectacle be sound, 
we are so far from believing it applicable in other 
cases, that we have legislated in utter defiance of it. 
We have been, and are still retrograding. We have 
abolished a number of these improving spectacles, 



2 1 6 On Public Executions. 

once highly popular, as well as the punishments which 
supplied them ; as the pillory, the stocks, and flogging 
at the cart's tail. It will be said, perhaps, that these 
were abolished principally because they were presumed 
to have a pernicious effect on the criminal himself, 
and only made him worse than before. But this was 
not the only or the chief reason for the abolition of 
some of these punishments,— more especially the pil- 
lory ; nor is it easy indeed to comprehend (what some 
sentimental prison-reformers have now and then 
affirmed) that the indignity of receiving personal 
chastisement can much debase one who has already 
reconciled himself to the practice of putting his hands 
into his neighbour's till or snatching his watch out of 
his fob ! But, whether it be so or not, this was not 
the principal reason for the abolition of such public 
punishments. The thing chiefly thought of w r as the 
effect they produced on the spectators, and that in two 
ways. First, they excited undue sympathy with the 
criminal, and thus counteracted the design of ex- 
emplary punishment ; — as in that case of flogging the 
thief at Olney, so humorously described by Cowper, 
where the " pitiful lass " of Silver End boxed the ears 
of the "pitiless constable," and the constable chastised 
the too pitiful beadle, and the beadle pretended to 
chastise the thief, and where the only person who 
suffered nothing was the thief himself. Secondly, they 
were alleged to produce that very evil, which is some- 



On Public Executions. 2 1 7 

how converted into a good in the case of public execu- 
tions ! that is, to collect, by the very nature of the lure, 
that class of spectators who form the very dregs of the 
population, and to make them more brutal, more con- 
temptuous of law, and more familiar with crime, than 
they were before. And therefore, though we still have 
some corporeal punishments, and have recently and 
not unwisely re-enacted them, in relation to certain 
signally atrocious crimes, as garotting and the wanton 
injury of public property, (a punishment which there 
is little hazard in saying will be found more effectually 
deterrent than any other), we wisely dispense with 
publicity in the infliction. Why we should not do so 
in the case of hanging, after so long experience of the 
brutalising effects of the spectacle, it is hard to say. 

It is curious to see how very little is said on the 
subject treated in the present essay, by the great 
writers on jurisprudence. In vain do we search their 
copious discussions for any adequate treatment of the 
expediency or otherwise of public executions. In 
vain shall we search Beccaria; in vain Montesquieu 
or Blackstone ; or the copious dissertation on punish- 
ments by Michaelis in the fourth volume of his " Laws 
of Moses." As little is said in the great work of 
Bentham, or of his translator, Dumont. If these 
writers consider the effect of public punishment on 
the spectators, it is still simply with a view to the 



2 1 8 On Public Executions. 

reformation of the criminal code itself ; with the view 
of pointing out, for example, the inexpediency of 
punishments which by their excessive or dispropor- 
tionate severity, or revolting character, destroy any 
salutary effects of the spectacle ; excite a sympathy 
with the criminal, bring the law into odium, or quench 
all sense of justice in the sentiment of horror or com- 
passion. But barring any such effects, all these 
writers seem to take it for granted that the spectacle 
itself, if the punishment be but just, may be an edifying 
one. None of them seems to have computed the 
entire moral effects upon the public, which a purely 
voluntary resort to see a hanging implies ; or to see 
that, as by a necessary law, the evil elements of the 
social body, and none other, must gravitate thither. 

It is true that these writers had something else, and 
more immediately pressing, to think of; — the revision 
and amelioration of the criminal code itself; the re- 
moval of those hideous anomalies, those cruel and 
disproportionate penalties, which then disgraced every 
statute-book in Europe. And one and all in different 
degrees nobly contributed to this result ; in one and 
all, principles and maxims are laid down which in due 
time bore fruit, and led on at length to the enlightened 
legislation which did so much for both humanity and 
justice. Slowly, however, did the light spread; and it 
is almost comic to see Blackstone sorrowfully acknow- 
ledging that no less than 160 " actions," according 



On Public Executions. 2 1 9 

to the letter of the English law, came under the head 
of " felony," and exposed their perpetrators to capital 
punishment, and yet on the same page congratulating 
the reader that our penal code contrasts favourably 
with that of some other countries ! 

Dr. Johnson, according to Boswell, even went so 
far as to deplore the abolition of the edifying pro- 
cession to Tyburn, and to express grave fears lest the 
omission of that time-honoured custom should leave 
the people with one instructive admonition the less ! 
" He said to Sir William Scott : ' The age is running 
mad after innovation ; and all the business of the 
world is to be done in a new way ; men are to be 
hanged in a new way : Tyburn itself is not safe from 
the fury of innovation.' When it was argued that this 
was an improvement — ' No, sir,' said he, eagerly, ' it is 
not an improvement. They object that the old 
method drew together a number of spectators. Sir, 
executions are intended to draw spectators. If they 
do not draw spectators, they don't answer their pur- 
pose. The old method was most satisfactory to all 
parties j the public was gratified by a procession, the 
criminal was supported by it. Why is all this to be 
swept away ?' ' I perfectly agree with Dr. Johnson,' 
very needlessly adds the Boswellian echo, ' on this 
head; and am persuaded that executions now, the 
solemn procession being discontinued, have not nearly 
the effect which they formerly had. Magistrates, both 



220 On Public Executions. 

in London and elsewhere, have, I am afraid, in this 
had too much regard to their own ease.' "* 

So slowly do even great minds give up a prejudice 
founded on custom ! For if ever there was a spec- 
tacle which one would suppose might be dropped 
without causing a sigh to anybody, it was surely that. 
Whether we take the descriptions of novelists, drama- 
tists, or historians, nothing could be more brutalising 
to the populace than that "dance of death" to Tyburn. 
But habit can reconcile us to anything ; and thus 
Johnson could view the very abuses of the ancient 
custom as among its uses ! " The populace is gratified 
by it — the criminal supported 7" as if either the one or 
the other entered into the original end of it. He 
speaks, w T ith as little consciousness of the absurdity of 
his words, as the gaoler of a county prison felt, when, 
being asked how many he could hang on his new drop, 
he replied, "Why, sir, we can six; but four will hang 
comfortably /■' 

Yet it would be most unfair, while adverting to this 
odd freak of Johnson's logic, not to mention that he 
was one of the very foremost in advocating the reform 
of the criminal law, by pointing out, with all his 
wonderful force of thought, the self-defeating effects of 
the severity of the existing code, both as exciting 
sympathy with the criminal and preventing the injured 
from prosecuting. There are few things in any of the 
* " Boswell's Johnson," vol. viii. p. 179. 



On Public Executions. 221 

professed writers on penal legislation more convincing 
or more powerful than No. 114 of the "Rambler." 
He there says, " The frequency of capital punishments 
rarely hinders the commission of crime, but naturally 
and commonly prevents its detection ; and is, if w r e 
proceed only on prudential principles, chiefly for that 
reason to be avoided." And speaking of the inequality 
of punishments, he powerfully says, "They who would 
rejoice at the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at 
the thought of destroying him. His crime shrinks to 
nothing compared with his misery \ and severity 
defeats itself by exciting pity." 

Similar reasonings were put forth by his great con- 
temporary Burke, in his plea for limiting the number 
of executions in the case of the Lord George Gordon 
Riots.* Such great writers as these, and the illustrious 
jurists already mentioned, sowed the seed which slow r ly, 
but surely, bore fruit, and at length led to an effectual 
revision of our penal code by the glorious labours of 
such men as Romilly, Macintosh, and their contempo- 
raries. If they had lived to our day, — however de- 
sirous they might be to retain capital punishment in 
the case of murder, — they would assuredly have pleaded 
for the abolition of public executions. 

The conviction that the effects of these odious ex- 
hibitions are in the immense majority of cases simply 

* " Reflections on the approaching Executions." Works, 
vol. ix. 



222 On Public Executions. 

pernicious, has long been gaining ground ; and pro- 
bably few would now defend them on the plea that 
they are calculated to excite a wholesome moral im- 
pression ; or that they may be what some of our older 
writers fondly deemed them, — a sort of sermon, only 
preached from the gallows instead of the pulpit ! 
Nearly fifty years ago the minute inquiries made by 
the Committee who drew up the important " Report 
on the Criminal Laws" (1819) tended to show that 
the effect of public executions was very problematical; 
and an able writer canvassing the minutes of the 
Report, and particularly questioning the expediency 
of entering at all into this question, yet virtually comes 
to the same conclusion at which the Commission had 
tacitly arrived. He says — "With regard to public 
executions, we believe that in all ages and countries, 
the good effects produced upon those whom curiosity 
has collected to witness them have been extremely 
limited." 

The great and palmary argument now insisted 
upon, but which really seems very inconclusive, is that 
public executions give us the only effectual guarantee 
for the sentence of the law being actually carried out ! 
It is not easy to imagine any real difficulty in the 
matter in a free country like our own. If, indeed, our 
Government were a mere despotism; if the officials 
charged with administering it could enact the horrors 
of the Neapolitan prisons or of the old Spanish Inqui- 



On Public Executions. 223 

sition, there would be good reason for this excessive 
scrupulosity. But is there the shadow of any such 
danger in England ? Do we not, under a system of 
complete responsibility to Parliament and People^ 
confidingly invest the Government with the most 
enormous powers, — powers involving the most com- 
prehensive social interests in a thousand forms, — 
without even dreaming that there will be the slightest 
ground to question the probity, however we may often 
question the wisdom, of those who administer it ? Do 
we not give to our 'statesmen, judges, and public 
officials of all kinds, power which nothing prevents 
being abused in countless ways, but their public 
character and the consciousness that they are ame- 
nable on the faintest suspicion to public investigation 
and the severest penalties ? — And is it conceivable 
that while we do all this, and without a scruple, the 
depositions and signatures of the sheriff, the gaol 
authorities, and (if you like to make assurance doubly 
sure) those of a commission of six or eight gentlemen, 
would not be deemed a sufficient security that the 
sentence of the law on a few miserable criminals had 
been duly carried out ? If so, why do we now intrust 
to the hands of the proper authorities the administra- 
tion of the far greater part of our penal machinery ? 
Why do we not demand that the treatment and 
punishment of criminals in general should be freely 
open to public inspection ? 



224 On Public Executions. 

Nor does the present system, as its advocates admit, 
secure absolute certainty in the matter. Even now, 
if the authorities empowered to carry out the law were 
really inclined to enter into a daring conspiracy to 
defeat it, success would not be impossible : and indeed 
rumour says that, in one or two instances, such a 
nefarious attempt to defraud justice has been actually 
made. Nor would it perhaps be impracticable, if all 
those on whom it devolves to manage the execution 
were such miscreants as such a conspiracy would 
imply. At the distance at which the rabble sees the 
victim, very few can be sure that he is the man \ fewer 
could swear to his identity ; and perhaps among those 
who are in a position distinctly to see his features, 
there may not be one to whom he is known. 

Again, what is meant by a public guarantee that the 
law has been carried out? The term "publicity" is 
relative. Very few, — indeed a mere scantling of the 
population, — do in fact see an execution ; and as to 
their c/iaracter, certainly, if it came to a contest of 
testimony, one is inclined to say that the depositions 
and signatures of a respectable Commission, certifying 
that the deed was done, would weigh more, not only 
than the impressions, but the oaths of a million of such 
wretches as gathered themselves together in the front 
of Newgate on the morning of November 14th ; not 
to mention that there is not the smallest reason to 
believe that those who go to such spectacles go for 



On Public Executions. 225 

the purpose of ascertaining that justice is done, or the 
proper person hanged, or even think of the question 
of identity at all. They trust all that, (as the nation 
would do, if the thing were devolved on duly qualified 
officials) to the common sense, honesty, and known 
responsibility of the officials themselves. I cannot 
say, therefore, that I am much moved with the argu- 
ment that it would be difficult to convince people. 
under the system of a Commission solemnly appointed 
for the purpose, that the condemned criminal had 
been hanged ; and that some supposititious corpse, or 
illusory phantasm, or stuffed effigies of a man had not 
been juggled into his place. It may be safely said 
that there is not one man in a million who would pre- 
tend that he had a grain of doubt that the law had 
been duly vindicated. To take guarantees that a 
Commission, so constituted, had not all perjured them- 
selves, would seem to most people as absurd as to 
"place guards on the outposts of possibility itself." 

If we can take guarantees, as assuredly we may, 
that the sentence of the law shall be rigidly and im- 
partially carried out within the prison walls, though in 
the presence of the proper officials alone, there can 
hardly be a doubi that such a mode of execution 
would make a far deeper impression, not only on the 
criminal himself, but on the criminal class generally. 
As to the former : the false supports which so often 
buoy him up, at all events prevent his fully realising 

Q 



226 On Ptiblic Executions. 

his position, would be struck from under him. He 
would no longer be distracted by the thought of either 
a sympathetic or an infuriated crowd. It would put 
an end to the illusion of that shameful " glory " which 
has made so many criminals die with bravado when in 
the presence of a vast multitude, and, above all, under 
the eye of the criminal class itself. That '-notoriety " 
which makes the man for a moment the " observed of 
all observers," though it be but on the gallows, and 
which so many a criminal mistakes for fame, will no 
longer, to use Johnson's expression, " support " him. 

On the other hand, if he be really penitent, or 
sincerely disposed to concentrate his mind on his 
terrible position, he will not be distracted (as many 
have been) in his last moments, by hearing the yells 
and bellowings of a riotous crowd just outside his 
prison. 

It is, perhaps, impossible in the nature of things 
that he can feel his true condition, if he be made the 
object of attention to a vast multitude. Even if they 
all hate and loathe him, they will still divide his 
thoughts. If there be any sympathy, though it be 
only that of his own criminal class, it will be an 
argument for maintaining an air of callous hardihood ; 
and if there be absolutely none — a rare case ! — false 
shame will as often provoke sullen defiance of his fate 
as any better feeling. 

But if compelled to take the dark journey thus 



On Public Executions. 227 

isolated from his fellows ; or with none to see him but 
the inflexible witnesses of his death, with inexorable, 
however compassionate, looks bent upon him, he 
would be far more likely to be properly affected. It 
would be with him, as it often is with the debauchee, 
who talks, with hardy insolence, of death and futurity 
amidst his boon companions and over his cups, but 
who usually grows tame enough when God has him 
face to face, in the loneliness of a sick chamber, and 
in his dying hour. 

As to the people generally : — I firmly believe that 
the very imagination of death inflicted upon the 
criminal in the privacy of a prison, — the awe and 
mystery which would be associated with that terrible 
and silent scene, would more powerfully affect them 
than the heterogenous reminiscences of a public execu- 
tion can do. It is one of those cases in which the 
imagination, acting with single concentrated energy, 
outdoes the effect of a many-coloured and distracting 
reality. Such a doom would carry with it much of 
the terror with which the secret " Vehmgerichte" were 
invested, only dissociated from all suspicion of in- 
justice and irresponsibility on the part of the Judges. 

Even under the most favourable circumstances — 
that is, in a more primitive state of society than our 
own — it would perhaps be impossible to render public 
executions salutary. If they ever are so, it can only 
be when the people in general are less refined ; when 



228 On Public Executions. 

the spectacle does not attract, as it must do with us, 
the bad alone ; and perhaps we may add, when the 
criminal classes are not (as they are sure to be if they 
have become such in the midst of civilisation) so 
callous to moral impression, or, as many would say, so 
superior to all superstition ! Of the difficulty of 
making these spectacles simply edifying, even to the 
most moral population, we have a curious and scarcely 
credible instance (even if we allow for the well-known 
effects of epidemic enthusiasm), in a work published 
about sixty years ago. In Denmark, it seems, accord- 
ing to M. Catteau, the prisoner was conducted from 
the prison with such attractive solemnities, and was 
treated to so charming a sermon just before he was 
hanged, that the spectacle itself, and all the pious care 
bestowed upon the culprit, turned the heads of the 
common people, some of whom committed murder on 
purpose to secure so efficacious a viaticum; and the 
Government was compelled to make hanging less 
seductive in order to correct this eccentric ambition ! 

Few will apprehend there is danger of any similar 
phenomena among ourselves. I presume the most 
eloquent sermon which the most eloquent Ordinary of 
Newgate ever preached, the most winning and per- 
suasive tones in which he ever exhorted penitence to 
make an edifying end, could not lure any of our non- 
criminal classes to commit murder, in order to be the 
flattered object of such eloquence, or enjoy the 



On Public Executions. 229 

oenefit of such surpassing spiritual consolations. But, 
for the criminal class itself, it would perhaps not be 
irrational to fear lest the apparently edifying departure 
which so many great malefactors make, the sudden 
transfiguration which they undergo under the manipu- 
lation of ghostly hands, the readiness with which they 
are transformed from reprobates to saints, and the 
sort of canonisation which the rabble incontinently 
bestows upon them, should operate upon the minds of 
some among them ; — forming one bribe the more to the 
commission of crimes which, if detected and punished, 
will yet issue in a repentance so easy and an exit so 
edifying. Murder will but insure to the culprit 
spiritual aid and skill of the most approved and 
seemingly efficacious sort ; make locks of his hair and 
fragments of his clothes precious in the eyes of the 
mob as the relics of a martyr, and qualify him to die 
in the " odour of sanctity." In sober truth, some of 
the representations we have read of the last moments 
of criminals may well make some who are on the 
same road imagine, that the gallows is not only about 
the easiest path to death, but the shortest way to 
heaven also ! 

Heartily do I agree with the editor of the Times 
— though I cannot see with him the necessity of 
retaining public executions at all — that the subject is 
well worthy of " the attention of the Commission 
which is now considering the whole subject of Capital 



230 On Public Executions, 

Punishment f* for the spectacles in question are not 
only a foul blot on our civilisation, but present scenes 
of which the grossest barbarism would be ashamed. 
They are the mere Saturnalia of Sin, Death, and 

Hell.t 

* See Appendix (A). 

*T The Times thinks that London may perhaps demand excep- 
tional legislation in this matter. But the evil is much the same 
everywhere. The scenes at Stafford on the 27th of December 
last, were nearly as odious as those in London on November 
14th (1864). 



231 



VIII. 

REPORT OF " A DIALOGUE ON STRIKES 
AND LOCK-OUTS." 

"\ 1 THO has not often found himself an attentive — 
though perhaps, as in my own case, a silent — 
member of one of those little self-elected Parliaments, 
extemporised at a dinner party after the ladies have 
retired ; a parliament, in which difficult and profound 
questions of politics shall be discussed, with almost as 
much wisdom and eloquence as in St. Stephen's itself ! 
I was present the other day on such an occasion. 
The debate turned on that momentous subject, 
66 Strikes and Lock-outs ;" and, as an odd " dream " of 
one of the party (involving the supposition that other 
classes besides working men and their employers 
resorted to similar measures) seemed to set not only 
the measureless absurdity, but, socially considered, 
even the criminality of all such barbarous methods of 
settling trade disputes in a somewhat new light, a 
tolerably correct " Report" of this " Debate" may 
not be uninteresting to the reader ; and I do not care 



232 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

if I play Hansard on the occasion. The conversation 
took place at the house of a wealthy merchant, one of 
the many men among us who by strong native sense 
and energy of character, have not only compensated 
many defects of early education, but to a good extent 
cultivated their own minds in intervals of leisure, and 
by industry and perseverance, forced their way to 
opulence and social position. Among the guests were 
two or three manufacturers of the neighbourhood, one 
of whom had not only been making money, but 
learning "philosophy" also, "among the spindles," 
for some forty years, and who took a principal part in 
the conversation. There were two clergymen, both 
intelligent men, one in the established church, the 
other out of it, and who, however they might have 
differed touching " Church and State," sang in perfect 
time and tune the woeful mischiefs which two or three 
long and memorable strikes had wrought among their 
respective flocks ; while a physician and a lawyer who 
were also of the party expatiated, the one on the 
increase of disease and the other on the increase of 
crime, engendered by the dissipation and destitution 
which had flowed from the same causes. Add to these 
an amiable and intelligent young man, the son of our 
host, who had received an excellent education, was 
well read in political economy, and (as" it was whis- 
pered) was looking forward one day to a seat in 
Parliament. He was, as young men are apt to be, 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 233 

rather advanced in politics ; a strenuous advocate of 
the laisserfaire principle, desirous of a large extension 
of the franchise, and disposed to make the working 
classes his clients. He warmly defended their 
" rights," and among the rest the right to " strike " as 
often as the humour seized them ; but also, as he 
frankly added, their right to bear the penalty of so 
doing. Some thought that his zeal was partly in- 
fluenced by a love of popularity ; but I do not believe 
it. I think it was enthusiasm on behalf of " rights " and 
hatred of " wrongs," (real or supposed), and zeal for 
the abstract perfection of a darling theory. The first 
is always natural and amiable in youth, and the second 
surely pardonable in a young philosopher, since we 
usually find it equally obstinate in an old one. 

It may be thought a bad omen for the fairness of 
any such discussion, that while the " Lock-outs," 
were very abundantly represented, the " Turn-outs " 
had neither puddler, nor joiner, nor mason, nor tailor, 
" on strike," to represent them. And yet they were 
well protected too ; not only by the general antipathy 
to " lock-outs " entertained by the entire company, but 
by the volunteer championship of the young gentle- 
man last mentioned, who though not liking strikes in 
the abstract, nor thinking them in general conducive 
to their professed end, yet distinctly avowed the abso- 
lute " right " of men to indulge in this expensive 
luxury, and the inexpediency, if not impossibility, of 



234 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

any legislation in relation to them. But he also 
affirmed, as I have just said, that though the right of 
men collectively " to strike," if they pleased, must be 
conceded, it was only on the principle that it was also 
the right of men, if they thought proper, collectively 
to " ruin themselves." 

The company agreed with him as to the almost 
insuperable difficulty of legislation \ but most of them 
thought that it was worth while to try anything and 
everything, except the utterly retrograde policy of 
re-enacting the laws against " Trade-combinations " in 
general. Some were in favour of Mr. Ludlow's 
plan of giving such combinations, both of masters 
and men, a legal statics and corporate existence, and 
so making them amenable to the Law ; all were in 
favour of trying Courts of Conciliation or Arbitration, 
and hoped something from the extension of " co- 
operative principles f but they seemed to have most 
faith in the formation and expression of a much 
more decided public sentiment in relation to the social 
wrong both of lock-outs and strikes, except in the rare 
case where the one is an absolute necessity of self- 
defence, previously provoked by the other. They 
seemed to think that the tone of the press, and of 
society generally, was much too gentle and tolerant, 
considering the enormity of the evil ; — which, they 
complained, was too often spoken of as the result of 
conduct, unwise indeed, but not deserving any very 



Strikes and L ock-outs. 235 

grave censure. Yet, if strikes and lock-outs be in 
themselves justifiable, every one felt, as the discussion 
proceeded, that the position involved the strangest 
paradoxes. If justifiable per se, — still more if they may 
be resorted to with the frequency and levity of the 
present day; if, by the agency of combination, they 
may at any time convulse or paralyze a whole trade, 
and even indirectly involve many other trades in the 
consequences ; then it would seem that that is justifi- 
able which may produce many of the evils of civil war, 
and disorganise society without society's having any 
voice in the matter or any means of self-defence ; thai 
is justifiable which may reverse some of the most 
important principles of public policy, — especially on 
the subject of free trade, — and destroy the best part 
of each individual man's liberty. 

The conversation began something in this way. 
One of the clergymen (the vicar of the neighbouring 
town) expressed his gratification at the termination of 
the great strike in the iron trade; "which," said he, 
" has, as usual, been attended with great loss to every- 
body, and benefit to nobody. But the lesson seems 
in vain. There are half-a-dozen strikes going on in 
different parts of the country at this moment ; and I 
am just now plagued by one myself." He explained, 
by saying that the repair of his church was standing 
still, because the masons had struck. His clerical 
brother told him that they were in the same predica- 



236 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

merit at the new chapel. The Episcopalian good- 
humouredly nodded, and said, with a smile, " Well, 
we can hardly be expected to sympathise with each 
other in such a case, so fully as in others. But it is 
not the masons only who are on strike ; the tailors are 
out too, as if we were to be deprived at once of 
houses to live in and clothes to wear, and reduced to 
naked savages at once. I went yesterday to my 
tailor to order a suit of clothes which I wanted imme- 
diately ; he told me, with a long face, that he feared 
he must disappoint me this time, for that all his men 
were out on strike, as well as those of every other 
tailor in the town." 

He added, that what with the vexations he had 
suffered from the masons' strike, and much pondering 
on the great " Iron Strike and Lock-out," his brain 
had been so wrought upon, that he had had on the 
preceding night a curious dream. " I thought," said 
he, laughing, " that all the learned professions — 
doctors, parsons, lawyers, journalists, schoolmasters, 
and professors — had struck for higher fees and better 
pay, and, like my tailor, refused to do another stitch 
of work till their just demands were complied with. 
The journals, methought, all announced the strike 
simultaneously, and then vanished the next morning, 
leaving the world in utter darkness as to all that was 
going on in it, — the great ' professional strike ' in- 
cluded. An old gentleman, a friend of mine, was 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 237 

roaring in a fit of the gout, and in vain sent for his 
doctor, who coolly reported that he was out on strike, 
and that the ' Doctors' Union ' would not allow him 
to come. Another, an old lady, was in articulo mortis, 
and her distressed heirs in vain implored a lawyer to 
come and make her will ; he told them she might die 
intestate, for him. As for me, with an odd mixture of 
feelings, — of shame and remorse at the thought of 
abandoning my sacred duties, and of noble heroism, 
such as only the martyrs of a strike can comprehend, 
— I stuck faithfully to our ' Clerical Trade-Union ;' 
sent bride and bridegroom unmarried from the altar, 
held out with still greater courage against baptizing a 
sick infant, and, to prevent the congregation from 
assembling to no purpose on the Sunday, ended by 
locking the church, and riding, off with the key in my 
pocket ; thus indulging in a strike and a lock-out at 
one and the same time. Upon my word," he con- 
cluded, " I almost think it would be well for the whole 
nation to strike together, by way of applying to the 
system the reductio ad absurdum. We should at all 
events get, what often seems the great object of 
strikes, (with such levity and wantonness are they 
resolved upon,) our fill of idleness for a few weeks." 

We made ourselves merry by pursuing the odd 
dream a little, and fancying some of the incidents 
which diversify ordinary strikes. We imagined a 
"non-union" doctor hastening to a patient, but 



238 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

hoaxed into going ten miles in another direction to a 
pretended case of far greater urgency ; or a " union " 
doctor, slyly stealing to his work, but waylaid and 
beaten by his indignant brethren, and dosed with his 
own physic ; the horrors of Paterfamilias on finding 
that all his ten children were to have an enforced holi- 
day for the half-year, or if not, that himself must be 
their sole tutor ; or a clergyman of the " clerical union " 
betrayed into the weakness of marrying a fond couple, 
and then tossed in a blanket, in gown and cassock, by 
his irritated brethren ; or a lawyer drawing a will for a 
client in extremis, and then beaten almost into the 
same condition for thus setting the " rules " of the 
" Lawyers' Trade-union " at defiance. 

"Well," said his clerical brother, "and if such a 
dream as yours, or something like it, could come true, 
would not the principles on which strikes are generally 
justified, justify these classes? i.e., on the supposition 
that they were conscientiously convinced (as ordinary 
' turnouts ' are supposed to be) that their just claims 
are withheld by their niggardly paymasters, the public ? 
I am quite confident," he continued, with a smile, 
"that there are thousands of poor preachers, as well 
as doctors, lawyers, and literary men, who are living 
on less pay than many skilled artisans ; nay, to whom 
some puddlers' wages would be a fortune. I am 
certain also that we are the classes for whom the 
recent beneficial fiscal reforms have done the least. 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 239 



The general effect of recent legislation has been, — and 
sincerely do I thank God for it, — to relieve us all of 
the taxes which press on articles of prime necessity, or 
greatly to reduce them ; but the working classes are 
also entirely relieved from the income tax, which has so 
long pressed heavily on many of us. I do not envy 
them this exemption for a moment : God forbid ! but 
such is the fact. — And then the benefit of a reduced or 
abolished tax, I grant, has not been lost, even where 
the consumer has not gained ; but it has not come 
to us in proportion. It has gone to the manu- 
facturer, merchant, trader, and artisan. Now as the 
articles thus relieved from taxation have been very 
various, large classes of the commercial world (one 
after another) have had, in addition to the reduced 
price of many articles in which they do not deal, (by 
which of course we too benefit), a separate bonne 
bouche, to sweeten the nauseous taste of the Income 
Tax. Thus the repeal of the paper duty was a great 
boon to newspaper proprietors, to booksellers, and to 
merchants who use large quantities of coarse paper. 
One of the last assures me that it saved his firm two 
hundred or more a year, and that he was much obliged 
to the Government for having thus paid him back, in 
one lump, more than his Income Tax ! But my 
penny paper is still a penny paper to me ; I do not 
see that the new books I buy are any cheaper ; and 
as to stationery, why, if there be a difference, it is so 



240 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

slight," said he, laughing, " that I do not suppose 
that, on all the sermons I have written since the 
paper duty was abolished, I have saved three half- 
pence. Even if I were as voluminous as Richard 
Baxter, and scribbled a folio every year, I should 
hardly be richer by a sixpence." 

" But at all events," said Mr. Charles D , the 

son of our host, "you partake in that general pros- 
perity of the nation which flows from just principles 
of commercial freedom." 

" Of course," was the reply ; " though not, I think, 
in the same proportion with those who are engaged in 
commerce. But do not imagine I am grumbling. I 
am only mentioning it to show that, if any classes 
could be justified in a strike, I think it is the pro- 
fessional class. And what I ask, is just this : — If any 
of us, or all of us, were to combine on some fine 
morning, strike for higher wages through the country, 
and suspend all our functions till we got them, would 
it be merely the assertion of a rights which, because 
legislation cannot deal with it, is on that account 
innocent ? Or, granting that legislation cannot deal 
with it, because impossible or inexpedient, would it 
be still a crime against society ?" 

" Perhaps," said the young man, laughing, " we 
might be able to bear with equanimity the ' parsons' 
strike,' and allow them to indulge in a lock-out into 
the bargain." 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 241 

" Ah ! Mr. Charles," said the other, good-humouredly, 
but with gravity, " that might do, if men found it as easy 
to die without religion as to live without it. But I 
have exercised my function too long not to know that 
the feelings with which they regard it in the fulness of 
bread and in the flush of health and youth, are apt to 
alter very much when poverty or sickness, and, above 
all, death, knocks at their door. And I fancy you 
would not deny, that if all who teach the ignorant the 
truths and duties of morality and religion were ' to 
cease out of the land,' your servants would hardly be 
quite so honest or your merchandise so safe as they 
are now. The Canaanite— including all the varieties of 
Hittite, Hivite, Jebusite, Perizzite, and Girgashite — 
would soon increase upon you." 

" I acknowledge it, sir," said the other, promptly • 
"believe me, it was but a joke, and perhaps not a 
very courteous one." 

"'That," said the vicar, "is frankly and handsomely 
said. And now let me remind you," he continued, 
smiling, "there are functions of ours which even 
youth thinks by no means tedious : and their cessation 
would be felt as a sore grievance. It would not be 
pleasant to bring your bride to the altar, and lead her 
away unmarried. And so we return to the question : 
on the grounds on which you justify the artisans' 
strikes, would you think such a general strike of the 
learned professions justifiable, though it produced 



242 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

through the country something much worse than old 
Pope Innocent's interdict in King John's reign ; that 
is to say, if none were baptized, buried, or married, if 
no doctor would physic his patients, or lawyer advise 
his clients ?" 

Our young friend whispered to his right-hand 
neighbour something which made him laugh. " Come, 
Charles," said his father, " no asides — what were you 
saying to Mr. N ?" 

" I was only saying, sir, that half the nation would 
be still better pleased with the strike, if the lawyer and 
doctor turned out with the parson." 

"Take care," said the doctor, laughing, "I may- 
make you recant, when you next send for me." 

" And I," said the lawyer, "will torment you, Mr. 
Charles, by three weeks' needless delay at least in 
drawing out your marriage settlements." 

" Ay, ay," said the vicar, "make him pay well for 
his jest, as you easily can. Law and physic may fight 
for the best claim to the motto — ?iemo vie imfiune 
lacessit. But, seriously, these strikes are no jest. If 
God does not send us trouble, it seems we make it for 
ourselves. He smote one of our great sources of 
commercial prosperity — the cotton trade — with the 
canker, and now we must needs do what we can to 
destroy another — the iron trade — with our own hand. 
They talk about the political right to indulge in strikes 
and lock-outs ; perhaps it is impossible to deny it, but 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 243 

recollecting all the mischief and misery that have 
flowed from them, and their tendency to produce still 
greater, I think that to originate or abet them is a 
heavy crime against society." 

" Nay, my good sir," said Mr. Charles, " you are 
hardly just : crime, it surely cannot be ; for those who 
strike only exercise a right which each of us claims, 
' to do what we will with our own :' and they exercise 
that right together, — that is all. Recollect, before you 
call it a ' crime,' that the legislature allows the 
legitimacy of combinations on the part of the work- 
men (and consequently on that of the masters also), 
by having repealed all penalties against them. You 
surely do not wish to restore those foolish laws ?" 

" Not I," said the other ; " trade-combinations have, 
no doubt, their legitimate uses, though I do not reckon 
strikes among them : but we will not quarrel about a 
word. ' Crime/ in the political sense, these strikes 
may not be, — as many other things are not, which are 
very properly called grievous offences against society 
notwithstanding. We shall both admit, I suppose, 
that there are many offences, of wdiich law can and 
does take no notice, but which are the fruitful sources 
of the crimes of which it does take notice, — as, for 
example, private intoxication, a licentious life, ingrati- 
tude, filial disobedience : all which Society, for the 
most part, can only repress by that frown of abhor- 
rence and contempt, that consignment to a Pariah 



244 Strikes and Lock-outs, 

caste, which the generality of men, not utterly aban- 
doned, feel far more deeply than any moderate legal 
penalty. It is ever a tendency of a too lenient public 
morality, to take its measure of what is right or wrong, 
innocent or criminal, from what the law can reach, or 
fails to reach \ from what can be made the matter of 
positive statute and definite punishment, or otherwise. 
This is that subordination of the ' spirit ' to the ' letter,' 
which, though but an unavoidable result of the in- 
firmity of all civil law, and the necessary consequence 
of its restricted object, is apt to operate unfavourably 
on our moral conceptions. If it does not impair our 
theory of ethics, it makes us view with too much le- 
nience mam/ actions of the most pernicious character, 
merely because the law cannot touch them. Such 
errors it is the part of an enlightened public sentiment 
to correct." 

" I cannot admit that strikes are to be accounted 
crimes even in that secondary sense you have just 
expounded," said our young friend. " That they are 
in every case great folly, I fully admit : and it may be 
shown in a minute, for the argument lies in a nut-shell. 
The principal element," said he, clearing his voice a 
little, and settling himself, as it were, to deliver a little 
economic demonstration — " the principal element that 
must determine the relations of capital and labour is 
the law of demand and supply. If there are fifty 
workmen, and you want a hundred, they will make 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 245 

you pay high wages for them. If there are a hundred 
workmen, and you only want fifty, they will by com- 
petition bring down wages to the lowest level on which 
it is possible to subsist. Now, to strike in such a crisis 
is to refuse the little that can be got, and to resolve 
that ' half a loaf is not better than no bread.' This 
was the case in many of the earlier strikes, when 
England was suffering, some forty years ago, from a 
plethora of labour, and political economists were full of 
alarm as to what was to be done in a few years, when 
the labour-market should become still more crowded ; 
— so little was human wisdom able to foresee the 
march of events, and to anticipate that in a generation 
or so the nation would be likely to suffer from a lack 
of men rather than from their superabundance, and 
that wages would consequently be high ; high, on the 
opposite principle to that just mentioned, — that if you 
want a hundred workmen, and there are only fifty, 
they will make you pay in proportion." 

" But," said his father, " strikes have not become 
less frequent in this condition of things ; rather they 
have become more frequent and prolonged." 

" Just so, sir," said his son, " for the ' Unions ' have 
better funds to maintain them ; but their folly is just 
as easily shown — nay, it is greater ; for you may make 
some allowance for the blindness of a starving artisan, 
when you can make none for a man who kicks down 
his full pail. But the folly is still clear. The limits 



246 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

within which the capitalist and the labourer co-operate 
are simply these : — the workman must at least have 
wages sufficient for his subsistence, the capitalist 
sufficient profit to induce him to invest his capital in 
employing him ; w r hat lies between, when these ends 
are attained, is the prize : and the question is, in what 
proportions it shall be divided ? Now it is a larger 
slice of this prize that the strike, when wages are good, 
is designed to secure. But the folly, I affirm, is still 
equally manifest ; for the moment the strike begins, 
and so long as it continues, the prize itself vanishes, 
and both parties are left with — nothing ! In the one 
case, it is as if a child would not eat his cake, because 
it was not as much as would satisfy his appetite ; in 
the other, because, though it was enough, his brother 
had a cake twice as big." 

" Or," said his father, " as if Joseph's brethren sul- 
lenly put their plates away, because Benjamin's mess 
was five times as large ! Well, Charles, you may call 
it folly, as undoubtedly it is ; but if committed with 
eyes open — as I believe it often to be — by the men 
who start and carry out these strikes, and who often 
live a very merry life at the expense of their more 
ignorant victims, I call it a crime against society and 
not simply folly. But then, what do you say to the 
consequences of these strikes, — the destitution which 
often follows them, the starving women and children, 
the increased burdens on the parish and the poor's 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 247 

rates, — the collateral injuries inflicted on connected 
branches of trade, — do not these things constitute 
strikes a crime against society ?" 

%i If the folly of the thing be fully seen, and the 
consequences to which you advert fully seen too, I can 
hardly deny that they are." 

Here Mr. W , already referred to as one of the 

chief spokesmen, a sort of Nestor of the Spindles, — 
who had seen many a long strike during the last forty 
years, and had gathered much and sorrowful wisdom 
from his experience, — insinuated himself into the 
conversation ; I say insinuated, for he spoke in a low, 
gentle, persuasive voice, and with great deliberation. 

" Your little speech, Mr. Charles, about the folly of 
strikes and lock-outs is all very well ; and, certainly, 
next to war, they are the most uncouth and barbarous 
ways of settling differences that men ever contrived ; 
nay, a strike or a lock-out is war : or rather it is still 
more senseless : for in war one side at all events wins, 
whereas here, in nine cases out of ten, both sides must 
be losers. But now, quite approving of your little 
speech, — which I hope you will one day enlarge at the 
hustings, — you have not answered the question of our 
clerical friends ; namely, whether, if such a thing could 
be, as that all the professional folks of a whole district, 
or, for the matter of that, of the whole kingdom, were 
suddenly to turn out on a strike for higher fees or 
salaries, you would say it was a justifiable step ? For 



248 Strikes and Lock-ouL 

my part, I am inclined to think that a strike, or lock- 
out, is not only a blunder, but a crime." 

" Why, Mr. W ? " said the young man, " I 

reckoned confidently on your taking the other side. 
I have heard you often say that the evil must be left 
to the correction of the evil produced by it." 

" So perhaps I think still ; but among the cor- 
rectives I have often thought that the moral repro- 
bation of society ought to be added, and that it would 
be well if these things were always thought of and 
spoken of as crimes as well as blunders." 

" But did I not hear you the other day defend the 
masters in the great lock-out in the iron-trade ?" 

"You did, and I am still of the same opinion. 
When the organization of men against masters became 
general, an equally extensive organization of masters 
against men became necessary : and if the strife must 
go on, I think so gigantic an exhibition of the evil 
would in the end be the truest mercy to all parties. 
For my part, I would rather see the battle in one or 
other of our great trades fought out to the last, and 
the whole nation thus roused to a sense of the enor- 
mity of the evil, than see the perpetual disturbance of 
one branch of trade after another, and often of several 
at the same time, and no end of misery produced in all 
parts of the kingdom ; — just as in war, I would sooner 
have things brought to issue in one great pitched 
battle, than see guerillas doing fifty times the mischief 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 249 

in detail. But apart from such reasons as these, you 
never vet heard me. and never will hear me, say one 
word of good of either strikes or lock-outs. There are 
only two cases (and they are very rare) in which they 
can be justified, and then they are a pure necessity. 
First, when, either from the competition in the labour- 
market, or scanty capital, or the scantier humanity of 
those who possess it, wages are offered on which the 
workman cannot subsist ; then, of course, he must and 
ought to strike, if it be only to change his employer or 
his occupation, or to emigrate ; for one of these he 
must do : — and secondly, when the scanty supply of 
labour in the labour-market leads the labourer to insist 
on terms which, in fact, would make the trade not 
worth carrying on, — in which case the master must 
have a lock-out to some purpose, and will be very 
sorry for it ; as it is then necessary to - shut up ' his 
factory as well as 'lock out' his men ! But between 
these limits there never ought to be a strike or a lock- 
out. Words cannot express, as you say, the folly of 
them, — for though either party may, in a particular 
case and for a little while, be successful, such success 
never can pay for the loss inflicted on both parties by 
the total suspension of trade during the strike. It is 
not too much to say that such folly is like that of the 
man who killed the goose that laid the golden eggs — 
or like that of the harlot in Solomon's judgment, who 
said of the child, ' Let it be neither mine nor thine,' — 



250 Strikes and L ock-outs. 

or like that of the dog that let go the substance and 
caught at the shadow — or like anything else that is 
most foolish. In every case, masters and men, as 
rational creatures, ought, by conference and arbitration, 
to be able to adjust these quarrels without first de- 
stroying (as they do now) the very thing they are 
quarrelling about ; that they do not, is a great blot on 
our civilization : and considering the immense mis- 
chiefs, not only to themselves, but to others, which 
spring from their present goings on, these things are 
not a folly merely, but a grievous wrong to society. 
But, in order that we may see whether we ought so to 
call it, I should like to know once more what you 
would think of a doctors', or lawyers', or parsons' 
strike, any or all of them ?" 

" But the very idea is absurd, my dear sir." 

" Of course it is ; but still it will serve as an illus- 
tration ; and the absurder the better, for that purpose, 
for you acknowledge that a strike is the extreme of 
folly." 

"Well, such a strike w^ould at all events be more 
deliberately cruel, and on that account, as well as 
because the men might be supposed to know better, 
would make society more angry" 

"I quite agree with you there," said Mr. W ; 

" but I think you would hardly say that that nullifies 
the principle you have laid down ; namely, that every- 
body is at liberty to set the value he pleases on his 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 25 1 

skill and services, and that, by parity of reason, any 
number of men may agree to do so. And as to the 
inhumanity, or inconvenience to society, it is but a 
question of degree after all. I am sure you will allow 
that the sum total of the miseries which many a long 
strike has occasioned to tens of thousands of starving 
men, women, and children, — the sufferings involved in 
the ruin of many prosperous manufacturers and mer- 
chants, — in the disorganization of trade, even in some 
cases its transfer to other lands. — and the loss of all 
that is implied in the loss of millions of wages, (to say 
nothing of the demoralizing effects,) will hardly admit 
of computation \ and if the suffering produced in this 
case does not affect the principle^ neither will it in the 
imagined cases. — But what other objection can you 
find to this peculiar strike or lock-out that would not 
apply to the ordinary ones ?" 

"Well," said Mr. Charles, " I should say they would 
involve a breach of contract with society. You know 
the workman must complete his contract before he 
' strikes,' and so must these." 

" Let us then,'' said the other, " suppose, the doctor 
to have finished with his patients in hand, and the 
lawyer with the causes he has begun, and the curate 
with his year of sendee, and so on, and afterwards to 
begin their strike, — what objection then ?"' 

" But, from their position, the reasonable expecta- 
tions of society, and the nature of the functions they 



252 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

have to perform, may they not be considered under an 
implied permanent contract to society ?" 

" I certainly think they may," answered Mr. W ; 

"but in no other sense than are our labourers and 
capitalists. I deny that any body of men have a 
right, if they please, to fold their arms, or refuse to 
employ their time, skill, and strength for the benefit of 
the community, unless the terms they may dictate, 
however extravagant, are complied with. All of us 
owe duties to the society of which we are members, and 
from which we expect protection ; and the collective 
muscle, sinew, skill, and brains, of the men who have, 
it may be, nothing else to employ for the public wealth 
are no more simply theirs, to use or not to use, than 
the coal and iron of the landed proprietor. If these 
be capriciously wasted or foolishly left idle, (as you 
admit is the case in strikes), the whole community, 
and not the men or their masters only, suffer severely, 
— as the history of strikes demonstrates but too plainly. 
The waste, again, of the ' Union ' funds, collected for 
more legitimate purposes, — the waste of the public 
money, to support those who might have supported 
themselves, — the waste of private charity, and the 
increase of idleness, — are chargeable upon these 
strikes ; and I once more say, make them not only a 
blunder, but a crime." 

" You spoke just now," said Mr. Charles, " of the 
proprietor of coal and iron. Cannot he do what he 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 253 

will with his own ? to let it lie idle, or to waste it, if 
he pleases ?" 

" I think not,"' said Mr. W , decisively, "without 

a crime, whether the law regards it as such or not : 
though I apprehend it soon would do so in an extreme 
case. The natural riches of a country are intended 
for the benefit of the nation that occupies it ; and the 
law of property, in securing to some a special right 
over them, does not design that the nation shall be 
robbed of ail beneficial interest in them. ' Property,' 
as Burke justly says, \ has its duties as well as its 
rights, and the one are correlative to the other ;' and 
as he truly adds, if those duties be wholly neglected, 
' it will not be property long.' Take an extreme case. 
Suppose all the coal and iron throughout the kingdom 
were the property of ten persons. Do you think the 
nation would endure to be told that, because it was 
their property, they might play the part of the dog in 
the manger with it, and either seclude it from use, or 
(if that were possible) destroy it ? would not the 
nation rather resume its rights over what is essentially 
national wealth, and therefore to be used for the 
benefit of the whole community ?" 

" I certainly think it would in so extreme a case. 
But I do not see how it could similarly deal with 
refractory workmen who should choose to withhold or 
waste what you truly call their part of the ' national 
wealth.'" 



254 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

" Neither do I, nor am I now speaking of that ; 
but merely showing that the nation would in the one 
case regard the imputed conduct as a crime against 
society ; and by parity of reason may do so in the 
other. — But what other objection have you to apply 
to the ' professional ' strike which does not apply to 
the rest ?" 

" Well, if one must reason on so absurd an hypothesis, 
I should say that it would bring upon us all the evils 
of a system of monopoly and protection, which the 
nation has abjured." 

" Very well," replied his acute opponent; "but is 
not that just what a strike tends to ? Is it not an 
attempt to affix, by combination, an artificial price 
upon a certain commodity, and so to bring upon us 
all the evils of monopoly and protection, though 
abjured and abandoned by the state ? The labourers 
do this by agreeing collectively that they will not sell 
their labour under a given price ; not the price which 
is determined by the competition of the open market, 
but by a combination which artificially creates a 
monopoly of the commodity, and vends it on the 
principles of protection. Nor does it matter at all 
whether the commodity be skill and labour, or any 
other, — say, for example, iron or coal. If all the coal 
and iron masters were to agree that they would not 
sell either of these commodities under 20/. per ton, 
would it not be just the same thing in effect, as the 



Strikes and L ock-outs. 255 

legislature's fixing an artificial value on corn, and 
decreeing that it should not be sold under that 
price ?" 

"Well, and do not the iron-masters of a whole dis- 
trict meet from time to time to agree on the price at 
which they will sell that commodity, and bind them- 
selves to adhere to it, — though I admit they find it 
hard enough to carry out their object ?" 

" Do you condemn, or approve that practice ?" said 
Mr. W . 

"Well, I think it the assertion of a right, on the 
grounds already applied to strikes." 

"You are consistent, at all events; /believe they 
are to be condemned on those very grounds ; / believe 
that all such attempts are of the nature of strikes and 
lock-outs, and are unjustifiable for precisely similar 
reasons. Further, I believe that they are tolerated, 
solely because, first, as you say, the attempt can only 
be partially successful ; and secondly because the 
sellers rarely venture to deviate much from the price 
which unrestricted competition would lead to. But if, 
by a stringent combination, they agreed to accept 
nothing under 20/. a ton for their commodity, I 
scarcely think you would consider such an artificial 
price a justifiable use of their rights of property." 

" But the very supposition," said Mr. Charles, " is 
an absurdity. On the principles of human nature to 
which a sound political economy appeals, we know 






256 Strikes and L ock-outs. 

that they would not act thus, still less throw away 
their commodities for nothing." 

" Quite true ; but it is still an imaginable case, and 
I want to know how you think society would charac- 
terise such conduct, and how, if persisted in, society 
would actT 

" Well, of course, if such things were done at all, 
society would naturally attribute it to madness, and 
shutting up the so-called proprietors, give their posses- 
sions to the next heirs, — who would know what to do 
with them. If such conduct could be supposed to flow 
from sane persons, it would certainly, as you say, be 
regarded as a crime against society, and justly incur 
the transfer or forfeiture of the national wealth thus 
rendered useless or destroyed." 

" Very well," said Mr. W , " that admission is 

sufficient for the application of my argument." 

" Excuse me," rejoined his antagonist ; " it seems to 
me, on the contrary, that its being a purely imaginary 
case altogether vitiates the argument. It seems to me, 
that we may fearlessly depend on the principles of an 
enlightened political economy in all such matters, and 
cling to the laisser-faire principle. You know the old 
laws against speculation in corn, and the indignation 
expressed against those who stored it up, waited for 
advancing prices, and sold it (as was complained) in 
times of scarcity at famine prices. They are now 
universally admitted to have been great Public Bene- 



Strikes and Lock-o?its. 257 

factors, who, thus storing the commodity, and selling 
it at a price in proportion to its scarcity, prevented it 
from being wasted, taught the community thrift in the 
use of it. and made it thereby last as long and go as far 
as possible. You surely would not have any laws 
made to regulate such matters, even in times of the 
greatest pressure : but would trust to the infallible 
principles of human nature to regulate them/' 

" Most assuredly,''' said Mr. W . "So far from 

wishing any laws on the subject, the miser mentioned 
in some old author, (you know his name, I dare say, 
— the fact is mentioned in M'Culloch's "'Political 
Economy,') who, in a siege, sold a rat for 200 shillings, 
should go untouched for me." 

"The story is told in Pliny." said Mr. Charles, 
"and pray recollect what M ; Culloch adds from 
Valerius Maximus — for it makes for me, and shows 
that things naturally adjust themselves very well — 
'that the avaricious seller had the worst of the bargain, 
for he died of hunger, while the purchaser was saved 
by his rat !' " 

"Well, Mr. Charles, so far from denying a syllable 
of what you have just said about corn-speculators and 
the like, I have devoutly believed it all, a score of 
years before you were born. I heartily agree that the 
class of which you speak, once so ignorantly libelled. 
confer immense benefits on society ; and I only 
hesitate to call them in the fullest sense of the word 



258 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

Benefactors, because we generally associate designed 
benevolence with the term ; in that sense, they are no 
more benefactors in preserving your corn for you, than 
the weazel who kills the rats that would eat it ; for he 
does it for his ow?z pleasure, and not for your profit. 
However, for the purposes of my argument, your illus- 
tration, properly applied, will answer just as well as 
mine. I fully grant that the corn-speculator, like the 
owner of coal or iron, may be trusted, on the principles 
cf human nature and political economy, not to destroy 
their commodities, nor to refuse the highest price they 
can get for them. Still, as before, it is an imaginable 
case, and that will do for me. Let us suppose, then, 
— to take your illustration of the corn-speculator, but 
making the case really parallel to that of the imagined 
iron-masters, — that he either set his granaries on fire 
in a time of scarcity, or refused to sell corn except at 
such prices as it was impossible to pay, and so multi- 
tudes starved with food before their eyes : — a purely 
imaginary case, I admit, but still imaginable. Now 
what would society in such a case call such conduct, 
and how would it act ? Would it not take one or 
other of the two alternatives you have mentioned, — 
lock the man up as mad, or treat him as a criminal, 
and confiscate his corn to public use ?" 

" I admit it ; but still it is an imaginary case," 
replied the other. 

"Very good; but if it occurred, you would call it 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 259 

by strong names. Now this, which, I grant, is but 
an imaginary folly in the possessors of coal-mines or 
the speculators in corn, is really chargeable on that 
portentous madness or social crime called a strike. 
The commodity, while the strike lasts, is simply wasted 
and destroyed ; and even if, after the strike, it sells at 
a little advance, it is as if the corn-factor destroyed 
part of his corn in hope of getting a better price for 
the rest ! Granting that a strike is occasionally suc- 
cessful, (as no doubt it is), it is not perhaps once in 
twenty times that the gain makes up for the loss 
entailed in getting it ; and for the inevitable loss, not 
in money, but in f hings far more precious, no money 
can ever pay at all. And even as regards money, 
comparing what has been lost by strikes with what has 
been gained, the loss probably exceeds the gain in a 
ratio that can hardly be computed. The late strike in 
North Staffordshire alone is computed to have cost the 
iron-workers at least 100,000/." 

"Very true," replied Mr. Charles ; " and even when 
there is a gain from a strike, I grant it would gene- 
rally come without the loss entailed by one : for if, as 
I have said, the labour-market is scantily supplied, — if 
employers want fifty men and can only get ten, — these 
last are pretty sure of being able to make their own 
terms." 

" To resume our argument, then," said Mr. W- • 

" since the implied breach of contract with society, and 



260 Strikes and Lock-outs, 

the charge of reintroducing monopoly and protection, 
certainly no more apply to a ' professional' strike than 
to any other, what other objection have you ?" 

" I fancy it might be said that if such a thing were 
possible at all, it could only be effected by some un- 
imaginable moral compulsion exerted on the members 
of such a combination, and attended with the destruc- 
tion of individual liberty." 

"The very thing," said the other, "which may be 
most reasonably objected to ordinary strikes. It is for 
that reason I argue that strikes are a grave social 
offence, inasmuch as they inevitably involve a violation 
of the principles of individual liberty. If there be one 
thing that Liberty should insure, it should be the 
power of every one to use his skill, time, toil, and 
brains to the best advantage ; to sell his commodities 
(these among the rest) at the best price he can obtain 
for them ; that he should be perfectly untrammelled 
*n making his bargain, instead of being, as he so 
often is now, the victim of an insolent Combination 
which tells him, if he belongs to it, that he must not 
work at all, except upon the terms it dictates ; and if 
he does not belong to it, too often procures his dis- 
missal from employment, simply because he does not. 
It is one of the most crying evils of strikes, that they 
often introduce a social tyranny as grinding as that of 
the worst political despotism." 

"I can quite go with you," said the other, "in ad- 



Strikes and L ock-outs. 261 

mitting the gross social tyranny which strikes too 
generally engender, and the miseries they bring ; but 
still I do not see how legislation, so long as a com- 
bination of workmen is purely voluntary, and no overt 
acts of violence are committed, can possibly deal 
with them. As soon as any such acts are committed, 
the law, you know, steps in and asserts, and properly 
asserts, its rights, — for as Mr. Mill says in his ' Political 
Economy,' ' No severity, necessary to the purpose, is 
too great to be employed against attempts to compel 
workmen to join a Union, or take part in a strike, by 
threats or violence.' But these acts, though numerous 
enough in the early history of strikes, are now, as you 
are aware, comparatively rare \ the old tricks of in- 
cendiarism or of machine-breaking, as directed against 
obnoxious masters, and of personal violence as di- 
rected against obnoxious workmen, have been pretty 
well discontinued since the memorable trials between 
1838 and 1843. The organisers of strikes have been 
at least more prudent and cautious, if not more en- 
lightened, than to throw T vitriol, or use the like gentle 
methods of persuasion, on a refractory fellow-work- 
man."* 

" There may be some improvement, doubtless," said 
Mr. W ; " but similar acts have by no means 

* The recent disclosures before the Sheffield Commission 
show how very precarious any such inference was, and the perti- 
nence of the reply of the other interlocutor in the Dialogue. See 
Appendix (B). 



262 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

ceased ; even during the last year,* most serious out- 
rages by brickmakers and others were committed, 
which their perpetrators are now expiating in penal 
settlements. Nay, we had a riot at Dewsbuiy only 
the other day. Nor have I the smallest hope, while 
strikes are in fashion, that it will not be one of their 
incidental, but still certain, evils, to lead to such 
deplorable violence. When men's passions are ex- 
cited, when party-feeling runs high, when anger, 
malice, and revenge are uppermost, and there is 
nothing but ignorance to control them, such excesses 
are to be periodically looked for, and will cease only 
when strikes themselves shall cease.'' 

" Still," said Mr. Charles, "when they do take 
place, the law steps in and avenges them. I do not 
see what more it can do, so long as the combinations 
in question are purely voluntary, and the intimidation 
— persecution, if you choose to call it so — of indivi- 
duals, and the consequent repression of individual 
liberty, (however annoying or pernicious), are the 
result only of moral influence. I do not see that the 
evil admits of any legislative remedy. As to that, all 
you have said seems to me very little to the purpose." 

"What I have said," replied Mr. W , coolly, 

" has been indeed to very little purpose, if it has not 
shown you that I am not inquiring whether the evils 
in question admit of any adequate legislative remedy ; 
perhaps on that point I am as doubtful as you are ; 
* i86j. 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 263 

but whether a ' strike ' be the grave social evil which 
I think it is; whether, if it be so, we do wisely, merely 
because it may be one with which legislation cannot 
efficiently grapple, in speaking of it, (as is too often 
the case), as if it were a justifiable thing in itself, — 
an unwise expedient indeed, but still an innocent one ; 
whether, on the contrary, we shall not do well, if it be 
a flagrant wrong, — nothing less than a social crime^ — in 
calling it so, and thus endeavouring to bring public 
opinion to bear upon it. If this can be done, if the 
nation generally can be got to speak of an organiser 
or abettor of strikes in the same terms as they would 
of a mad dog, or any other social plague, it will not a 
little tend to abate the mischief. It is not the masters 
only, or society in general, that are to be pitied as 
the victims, in manifold ways, of this social tyranny. 
Thousands and tens of thousands of those who 
6 strike ' are themselves yet more to be pitied. You 
have only to go amongst them and talk with them, to 
learn how many there are, who in almost every strike 
bitterly complain of their fellow-workmen, as com- 
pelling them under the pressure of this moral persecu- 
tion, to join in acts which they feel in fact must 
involve them in present want, and often irretrievable 
ruin. In numberless instances have I heard one and 
another of these poor creatures say : — ' I am very 
sorry ; for my part, I was contented with my em- 
ployers, and my wages ; but the bulk of my fellow- 



264 Strikes and Lock-outs, 

workmen resolved to strike, and what. could I do? I 
should have been persecuted in a thousand petty ways, 
or cut off from all share in the funds of the Union/ 
(collected, by the way, for very different purposes), 
' and so what could I do but strike with the rest ?' " 

" Very true," said Mr. Charles; " the condition of 
thousands of them is most pitiable ; but still, how can 
you help them? It is the ascendancy of numbers and 
headstrong passions over a minority with feeble wills ; 
but it is a voluntary subserviency on the part of the 
latter, and I do not see how the thing can be reme- 
died." 

" Neither, perhaps, do I, by legislation alone : 
though, by the way, even the Law does not absolutely 
regard this species of tyranny as beyond its cogni- 
zance, when it can take hold of it. The spiritual 
influence which an artful priest sometimes exercises 
over a weak woman, and which the law, when it can, 
severely punishes, is precisely of the same nature \ 
neither worse nor better, than that which a tyrannical 
majority in a thousand cases of ' strike ' exercises over 
a timid minority, who are dragged into months of 
misery and starvation, because they have not the 
courage to resist. 'It is truly wonderful, 7 says one 
of the best writers on this subject, ' to reflect that 
scarcely any existing government in Europe, from 
Constantinople to Petersburg or Paris, would venture: 
to exercise so stringent a rule over its subjects as a 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 265 

large proportion of our working men submit to from 
other men of their own order.' But it does not make 
the tyranny less hateful, nor to exercise it the less 
criminal, that it is of a moral character. I may 
mention an example, that recently came under my 
knowledge, of the comprehensive nature of this social 
tyranny. I had a friend residing in the south of 
England, who successfully competed for the erection 
of a certain public building in a northern county. He 
made contracts with the brickmakers in the neighbour- 
hood of the site, to supply him with bricks. Having 
in his own employ a gang of men whom he could 
thoroughly depend upon, and having undertaken to 
complete his contract in a given time, he thought it 
would be worth his while to bring them from the 
south, and did so. He immediately received inti- 
mation from the ' Trade Union,' that if he did not 
dismiss all these workmen, he should not have a 
single brick ! He said he should bring that to the 
test, and immediately applied to his brickmakers to 
supply the bricks. But he soon found that the 
Israelites could as soon complete their tale of bricks 
without straw, as these men could complete their tale 
of bricks without the consent of their ' Jack Straw,' — ■ 
the Brickmakers' Union. They told him it was out of 
their power to fulfil their contracts ; they dared not 
send him a single brick in the face of that pressure 
which their own men threatened them with. It was 



266 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

in vain he urged that they had entered into contracts 
with him, and were liable to penalties for breach of 
them. They told him they were very sorry ; none 
could be more strongly convinced of the iniquitous 
tyranny of the ' Trades' Union ' than they were ; but 
it was out of their power to supply him, without in- 
curring heavier penalties than that of throwing up 
their contracts with him, and paying the forfeiture ! 
Now I should like to know, whether you can imagine 
a more complete destruction of the reality, nay, of 
even the semblance of liberty, than in this case? 
The builder could not employ his own known and 
tried workmen, the men could not work for their own 
master, the brickmakers could not fulfil their contracts, 
but had to pay the penalty for breach of them ! No 
one was permitted in the whole transaction to dispose 
of his own brains, time, capital, labour in the way he 
judged for his interests, and as individual freedom 
dictated; and all because the brickmakers determined, 
in their sovereign will, that if any one of these persons 
acted as a freeman might and ought, they would 
indulge in the luxury of revenge in the shape of a 
strike ! Is it possible to imagine any exercise of 
tyranny more gross or monstrous than this ? or any 
bondage more humiliating or more absolute than that 
of its victims ? Is it not just as tyrannical as if, when 
the projectors of the said public building had declared 
that any builder in the country might compete, the 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 267 

architects, contractors, and master builders of the 
neighbourhood, had combined in a 'professional' 
strike, to defeat them ?" 

" I have nothing to say for it," said his opponent. 
" It is not possible, I admit, to imagine a greater 
social wrong than you have described. But what is 
the remedy ?" 

"Perhaps I don't know," said the other; "only, as 
before, do not let us refrain from calling things by 
their right name ; nor pretend that such vile con- 
spiracies against freedom as these are the legitimate 
assertion of rights ; or anything else— whether the 
law can reach them or not — than flagrant wrongs to 
society. Nor ought we as a nation to boast of our 
freedom while such social tyranny prevails. If these 
combinations be indeed an example of the fruit of 
liberty, that fruit has already become rotten. Have you 
read the remarkable pamphlet on this subject by that 
able architect Mr. Waterhouse, whose beautiful ' Hall 
of Justice ' in Manchester is one of the noblest archi- 
tectural triumphs of our day ?" 

" Yes. I see that his men struck, thereby delayed 
the work for some time, and entailed much loss on all 
parties, because he refused to dismiss a solitary gang- 
leader, over whom he had no control. I believe the 
senseless men have got rid of Mr. Waterhouse instead 
of the gang-leader ! No doubt, the workmen of other 
localities will get the benefit. " 



268 Strikes and L ock-outs. 

" But such things are the necessary consequence of 
the right to form these combinations ?" 

" I cannot deny that," said our young philosopher; 
" though I have not a word to say for such suicidal 
selfishness. " 

" Meantime," resumed Mr. W , " you have not 

mentioned any objection to strikes of the ' profes- 
sional' class, or indeed any other, which does not 
equally apply to ordinary strikes. Now since the 
former, if they could exist at all, and were as widely 
ramified as our ordinary strikes and lock-outs have 
recently threatened to be, would certainly issue in the 
utter disorganization and ruin of society, and would 
be denounced on that ground alone, not simply as 
monstrous blunders, but as enormous wrongs, I can- 
not see why you should not apply the term to the 
latter." 

To this Mr. Charles did not reply, and I thought 
by his silence seemed to concede the conclusion 
which it appeared to me Mr. W had so trium- 
phantly made out. After a pause the latter added : 

" And your remedy for all these evils, whether of 
the real or supposed ' strikes ' is, of course, the same 
in all cases ?" 

"Certainly; laissez faire. Nor have I anything else 
to say even in the extremest cases. Should your 
imaginary strike ever take place," he continued, laugh- 
ing; " and be as obstinate as some we have known, 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 269 

you must import your surgeons, doctors, and clergy- 
men from abroad, or you must migrate to find them." 

" As to the doctors," said the other, H their patients 
would be dead before the foreign physician could 
come ; as to the clergymen, we must be content with 
a few missionaries \ as to the lawyers; perhaps the 
law-suits would often be as soon finished if the suitors 
waited for foreign help." 

"Nevertheless," said Mr. Charles, "it is seriously 
the only remedy that I see, in the last resort, for 
either your imaginary or the real cases. In these last, 
the labour or the commodities (if strikes or lock-outs 
were obstinate) may and will ultimately be got from 
abroad, or the trade and its capital will migrate 
thither ; and so the foolish people will at last burn 
their fingers." 

"Very likely; but what consolation will that be, 
when the nation is ruined ? As to the first and more 
tolerable alternative, — -suppose all you want can be 
imported, the remedy cannot be applied at once, and 
immense loss and suffering will be entailed in the 
interval; secondly, the commodity must be at an 
increased cost to the community, and all incurred in 
the interest of principles virtually the same with those 
of protection ; thirdly, the disorganization of trade 
which attends such a course — even if happily no 
violence or outrage accompany it — -must involve 
thousands in ruin \ fourthly, if, by the introduction of 



270 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

labour, or any commodity whatsoever from abroad, as 
a consequence of such strikes, many are permanently 
thrown out of employment and come on the poor 
rates — a case continually happening in ordinary cases 
of a prolonged strike — a grievous wrong is done to 
society. And then, look at your second remedy, — if 
indeed it be not rather utter ruin ; — namely, that, as 
the ultimate consequence of triumphant strikes and 
lock-outs, trade, and the capital which supports it, 
would flow away from a nation, and migrate to a soil 
where they would not be thus persecuted. Would the 
state of things which required such a remedy, involve 
no wrong to society on the part of those who had 
brought it about? rather, would not a course of 
action which had that result, be a crime against 
society of the most heinous character ? But, further, 
it does not follow that you will be able to apply even 
any such ruinous remedy as this ; for if our l Trade 
Unions ' are able to carry out the boastful threats they 
have often uttered, and to organise their conspiracy 
against capital as effectually abroad as they have often 
done at home ; if they can * belt the world round/ as 
some of them say, in one chain of impregnable Trade 
Unions ; and if the lock-outs be co-extensive in their 
combinations — the evil will be wide as the world, and 
you could no more migrate from it than you can 
escape from your own shadow. That, I grant, is 
scarcely to be apprehended; but it is the tendency 



Strikes and L ock-onts. 271 

of such combinations ; and shall we hesitate to call 
them wrongs, as well as blunders ?" 

"I am under no apprehension," said one of the 
other guests, "on that score; if it must come to a 
general struggle between lock-outs and strikes, the 
masters are sure to beat the workmen ; and though I 
hate a lock-out as heartily as I do a strike, except as 
an absolute necessity of self-defence, I have no doubt 
in the world, that if the workmen are resolved to 
bring it to such issue, that we shall beat them." 

" Perhaps so," said our host " But for the reasons 
which have been assigned, it is a victory which would 
be only one degree better than defeat. The masters 
do not combine so readily or so firmly as the men ; 
and by the time a contest between them has come to an 
end, the prize for which both parties contend may 
have vanished in the conflict ; important branches of 
our trade may be found hopelessly disorganized and 
crippled, or even transferred to other lands. Mean- 
time every one seems in doubt whether legislation can 
do much ; and since these disputes between the men 
and their employers as to whether an equitable share 
of the conjoint products of capital and labour falls to 
each, are certain to continue, according to the ever- 
varying relations of capital and population, ought not 
all parties to do their very uttermost to try fairly the 
proposed l courts of arbitration,' or ' conciliation,' as 
they call them in France ?" 



2 72 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

" I shall be very glad, for one," said the last speaker, 
" to see the experiment fairly tried, but it must not be 
such an arbitration as one of the workmen recently 
proposed — an ' arbitration,' the decree of which must 
be acceptable to the workmen. That would be like a 
Reciprocity treaty ' all the advantages of which should 
be on one side. It reminds one of the woman who, 
being exhorted to remember her promise to obey her 
husband, said ' Obey him? I have no objection to 
obey him, but I won't be ruled.' " 

" Let the method be tried, at all events," said our 
host, " and I hope something also may be done by 
the gradual and wise extension of the co-operative 
system." 

" At any rate," said Mr. W— — , " there is less reason 
for resorting to such ruinous measures as strikes, and 
more for trying sensible methods, in our day than at 
any former periods. Both parties can afford to reason. 
Ours are not starvation strikes. Wages are good, and 
likely to be so from the condition of the labour-market. 
It is a case, therefore, that ought to admit of the same 
common-sense course that is taken in "other like cases. 
To destroy at once the present means of subsistence 
in the hope of enlarging them, is like burning down 
your house in the hope of improving it ! In every 
other class of people except our workmen, this 
method of endeavouring to mend insufficient pay, is 
usually thought the very extremity of mad imprudence. 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 273 

A man who is receiving less than his due, or what he 
thinks less, (as a clerk in a bank, for example, or a 
poor curate), naturally endeavours to better his condi- 
tion, but never dreams of letting go his hold of what 
keeps him from starving, till he has got something 
better; any more than a drowning man will quit his 
plank for nothing. Here and there a fool may act 
thus ; but he is called a fool for his pains. It is only 
among our workmen that such insanity becomes 
epidemic, and is called by soft names. To act as men 
do in a strike, even if they have reason to complain of 
their wage, and justly refuse to put up with it without 
an effort to increase it, is much as if the clerks in a 
bank, having a strong conviction that they were under- 
paid, should resolve some fine morning to leave their 
desks in a body, and take their chance of suddenly 
finding another berth, — wisely hoping in the mean- 
time that their past savings, out of that same in- 
sufficient income, may enable them to live in idle- 
ness !" 

" Let us try anything and everything,'' said our 
host; " but among other things, let us remember the 
advice of our friend here, to call things by their right 
names. If the public will but learn to call this evil, 
which is eating more and more as a canker into our 
national prosperity, — by its right name ; an evil which, 
even in the judgment of my son, involves at least 
drivelling folly, since by the very terms of the contest 

T 



274 Strikes and Lock-outs. 

the entire prize of ' profits,' for which both parties 
contend, absolutely vanishes the moment they begin 
to fight for it ; an evil which encourages periodic and 
wholesale idleness in large portions of our population, 
and in that way leads to the moral ruin of thousands ; 
involves in want and suffering multitudes of women 
and children ; fills the workhouse and the pawn- 
broker's shop ; increases the public burdens ; wastes 
the funds which thrift had put by for sickness and 
age ; encourages all kinds of ill-will between class and 
class ; disorganises the relations of one branch of trade 
after another, and may possibly (if it goes on as it 
has gone on of late years) lead to gigantic struggles in 
which important portions of our trade may flit alto- 
gether; which reverses the policy of Free Trade, 
restores in another form the evils of protection and 
monopoly, and destroys in thousands of cases the very 
essence of personal liberty ; if the public, I say, will 
agree to call this evil by the right name, and look 
upon every organiser or abettor of strikes or lock-outs 
as a traitor to his country ; if the public press will 
uniformly speak of these things as flagitious as well as 
absurd, instead of adopting the measured tone it too 
often does, the frown of society will do much to abate 
the nuisance, — probably far more than the legislature 
can ever do." 

" And let me tell you, Mr. Charles," said Mr. W v 

" that if you are anxious for the safe extension of the 



Strikes and Lock-outs. 



</D 



franchise which you advocate, — and I suppose all of 
us would be glad continually to increase the area of 
the representation in proportion as knowledge and 
education descend among the people, — there is no 
one thing that is so essential, as to show the working 
classes the folly and wickedness of strikes. Though 
little may be said about it in Parliament, the thing 
that is chiefly running in almost everybody's head, 
who has doubts about the propriety of Reform, is the 
fear engendered of the gigantic strikes which have 
pestered the country of late years. They are an 
example at once of the ease with which, it is too plain, 
the masses might be moved in any given direction by 
means of artful leaders, and of the preposterous and 
mischievous objects to which this immense and com- 
pact force might be applied. To give the masses 
political power will, in the estimation of many, saddle 
the country with Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea. In- 
deed if they have no more wisdom in wielding political 
power than they display in the matter of strikes, and 
exhibit the same blind subserviency to a few artful 
leaders, who organize and marshal them, as they 
do now, their combined action might end in that 
simple partition of political privileges, whereby the 
poor should make all the laws, and the rich pay all 
the taxes." 



276 



IX. 

RAILWAY ACCIDENTS AND CHIEF 
SECURITIES AGAINST THEM. 

HPHE stimulus (enormous as it is) which the Railway 
has given to travelling, has by no means reached 
its limit ; and yet, considering the alarming accidents, 
or rather terrible catastrophes, which even now 
periodically frighten the public when the railway 
system is working under a more than usual strain, it is 
impossible not to look at the future with some appre- 
hension, and to speculate on the best modes of 
diminishing the increased perils which our ever in- 
creasing mobility must occasion. As the subject is of 
vital interest to us all, (concerning as it does no less 
than life and limb), any man who thinks he has any 
suggestion to offer that may be, in the smallest degree, 
useful, needs no apology for uttering it, even though 
it should prove to be of no more significance than the 
cobbler's criticism on Apelles. 

Though it is easy to trace specific " accidents " to 
specific proximate causes. — a pointsman's forgetful- 



Railway Accidents. 277 

ness, a plate-layer's negligence, the breaking of a 
coupling-chain, and so on, — yet the times at which the 
most serious of them have occurred — their general 
periodicity — seems to show that the " cause of causes," 
— that which for the most part involves these proxi- 
mate causes, — is the over-taxing of the powers of the 
railway in times of pressure, till the tension makes 
it, in some point of construction or management, give 
way. 

That in the long run it can never answer the purpose 
of any company to attempt more than can be done with 
due regard to the public safety, will perhaps be granted 
by everybody. That Railway would ultimately suc- 
ceed best which, having all the trains it can safely 
run steadily full, kept time like the sun ; insured by 
the utmost regularity of working a minimum of 
accidents, and therefore of losses and " compensa- 
tions : " the " catastrophes " of which were remote 
traditions ; which inspired people with as much confi- 
dence when they stepped into its carriages as when 
they stepped into their beds. It would pay best, just 
as in the old coaching days, that coach paid best, — 
not which was stopping at every turn to " tout " for 
passengers, or offered (in the madness of competition) 
to take passengers for next to nothing, or even to pay 
them for the honour of patronizing it, that it might not 
be empty, or made itself top-heavy by taking half-a- 
dozen supernumeraries on the roof, — probably only to 



278 Railway Accidents. 

" spill " them all at the bottom of the next hill, — and 
so became a synonym for irregularity and disaster ; 
but the steady-working four-in-hand, that kept time 
like the chronometer in the guard's pocket, the clank 
of whose harness beat like a metronome, and which, 
inspiring the public with unbounded confidence in its 
punctuality and safety, always came in full, inside and 
out. 

In discussing the best management of the railway 
system, in prospect of the still indefinite increase of 
travelling, a preliminary question presents itself, which 
ought to be answered readily enough, and yet which 
at present does not seernso much as asked : — namely, 
"What is the primary object which should be kept in 
view by all railway companies ? Is it to convey only 
as many people and as much merchandise as can be 
conveyed by them, or to attempt to carry the whole 
world, should the whole world think proper to be set 
upon wheels on any given day ? in other words, Is the 
object to do only what is within possibility, looking at 
the uttermost limits of the capacities of the rail in 
relation to the public safety ; or to resolve never on 
any occasion to refuse a passenger, or compel him to 
go by the next train or on the next day, even though 
the whole human race were crowding on to the plat- 
form ? One would think that if there was any diffi- 
culty in answering such a question, it could only be 
because it was absurd to ask it ; and yet from a certain 



Railway Accidents. 279 

vague notion, contracted from the fact that the system 
has (somehow or other) met the strain made upon it, 
it seems to be taken for granted that no matter how 
many millions may demand to go in the same direc- 
tion on the same day, the railway is bound to extem- 
porise as many trains as may be necessary to convey 
them; that it is not to be restricted (or to restrict 
itself) to taking only so many as with a proper regard 
to the safety of the public, — after duly considering 
the capacities of iron and machinery, the powers of 
mortal endurance on the part of officers, porters, and 
drivers, and the inflexible limits of the twenty-four 
hours, — can be conveyed on the same day ? . Nor can 
it be denied, that the great facilities for travelling 
offered by the rail, and the generally ample supply of 
locomotive power for everybody, — that is in ninety- 
nine cases out of a hundred, and perhaps for 300 days 
out of the 365, — have not unreasonably made English- 
men a little impatient of considering whether there be 
any limit at all. And yet it is plain that, for certain 
portions of the year at all events, we are rapidly 
approaching the point at which it will be necessary to 
consider this question, and perhaps by-and-by it will 
be necessary to consider it all the year round; for 
while the love of travelling may be stimulated without 
limit, the capabilities of men and metal, but, above all, 
the hours of the day, are restricted. Within a certain 
interval, it cannot be safe to despatch one train after 



280 Railway Accidents. 

another; still less to chuck upon the rails (so often 
and so perilously done now) any number of occasional 
trains, to take their chance of so dodging the regular 
trains as neither to cause nor to suffer a breakdown. 

There is thus a point, — to which in the daily 
increase of travelling we seem to be approaching, — 
which will compel us to ask, whether railways shall be 
expected to carry everybody at any given time, so that 
if any man be left behind, he shall have a reason- 
able right of grumbling; or whether they shall be 
bound to do only what is possible ? On those occasions 
on which the principal pressure is felt, — that is, in 
times of universal holiday-making, — we have clearly 
passed the limit in question ; and hence chiefly those 
terrible accidents, which occur with pretty constant 
uniformity just when the capacities of mind and matter 
are overtaxed, and the whole system of railway 
machinery and management is working at high pres- 
sure. 

As travellers have come to be impatient of supposing 
that if the whole world wants to move in a particular 
direction at a particular time, the whole world should 
not be instantly accommodated, so the " Companies," 
like other mortals sitting " at the receipt of custom," 
are exceedingly unwilling to refuse anybody's money ; 
and are prone to believe that what it is their interest 
to do, it is also quite possible for them to do. And 
this is so natural a state of mind for all directors and 



Railway A ccidents. 281 

shareholders to fall into, that it would perhaps be per- 
fectly idle to say one word on the subject, were it not 
that there is another side of the question ; — namely, 
whether, as railway travelling still increases, it may not 
be possible to realize greater, because more secure and 
less fluctuating profits, by working the railway system, 
even at the busiest time, only up to that maximum of 
its resources which shall be strictly consistent with the 
conditions of safety and regularity, (running as many 
trains as it is possible to run under these conditions, 
but always well laden, and always punctual), than by 
extemporizing a number of trains at any moment of 
pressure, — thus deranging the whole system for the 
time being, and occasioning accidents so frequently 
and on such a scale as must dip deeply into the profits 
of the shareholders to repair the mischief to the rail- 
way plant and compensate the injured passengers. 

Nor is this the only injury which an increasing per 
centage of accidents would inflict on railway interests ; 
it would infallibly check the growing passion for 
travelling. The disposition has been developed by 
the comparative safety, combined with the rare facilities 
and conveniences, which the railway offers ; and if the 
safety be diminished, and in proportion as it is so, the 
motive to travel will at last adjust itself as exactly to 
the measure of public confidence as the stock markets 
to similar causes. It is quite a mistake to suppose 
that because people probably travel ten times as much 



282 Railway Accidents. 

as formerly, therefore they must continue to do so, or 
that nothing can henceforth alter the habit. It will 
depend entirely on the guarantees for the safety, and 
even in a large degree on the continuance of the con- 
veniences, of travelling. At certain times and in 
certain localities this feeling is already beginning to 
operate in an appreciable degree. In one large city, 
where for one week in the year, the whole railway system 
seems to be given up to a sort of Saturnalia of cheap- 
pleasure trips, it is not uncommon to hear folks say, 
" We never, if we can help it, travel in that week. It 
is hardly safe ; and from the general derangement 
of the railway system, the enormous delays and want 
of punctuality of the trains, it is anything but pleasant." 
A great part of the travelling for pleasure will certainly 
be contracted by any considerable diminution of the 
advantages which have occasioned its increase ; even 
as regards business, people often can dispense with 
travelling, and will, if they have to pay too high a 
price ; they often take the rail simply because they can 
transact their business a little more expeditiously and 
effectually in person than by letter ; but in a thousand 
cases the delays of the post will be preferred to any 
appreciable augmentation of danger to life or limb. 

If then the object be, not absolutely to convey all 
that may possibly wish to go on a given day and di- 
rection, but as many as the capacities of a railway 
(taxed if you please to near its maximum of power) 



Railway Accidents. 283 

can convey with safety, and, in order to that end, with 
perfect regularity, the question with railway directors 
(or, if they will not entertain it, with Government) 
should be: "What is the rolling stock of any given 
railway ? — what the staff of officers and porters ? — what 
interval must, at the least, be allowed between any two 
trains?" — and, viewing these conditions together, "How 
many trains, and of what magnitude (so as not to en- 
danger a breakdown by the mere enormity of weight, 
nor, in case of collision, frightful aggravation of mischief 
by their momentum), can be sent off and taken to their 
destination punctually in the day ?" Up to this maxi- 
mum any railway may be permitted to work; but beyond 
it, surely none but a madman would urge it, even though 
half the world were waiting for the means of transit. 
It does not follow, of course, that a railway should 
be always working up to this point ; though at certain 
seasons, even now, it may well be expected to do so, 
and probably the time is not far distant when the 
amount of travelling will be such as to exact it all the 
year round. But though they may work sometimes 
within this limit, they should never be allowed to 
exceed it. Nor should the variations (as is too often 
the case now) be sudden and capricious, nor should 
any movements be improvised for the day. Regula- 
rity and punctuality — the making any system work (as 
we say) like a ?nachine — can be attained only by doing 
the very same things day by day ; any programme, 



284 Railway Accidents. 

therefore, should be, for a prescribed interval, inflexible 
as the laws of the Medes and Persians, "which altered 
not." Nor can there be any great difficulty in this 
matter ; for since the times of greatest pressure, as 
Whitsuntide, Christmas, and Easter, are as well known 
as the four seasons : so, if a railway then work at a 
maximum, all may be duly calculated and provided 
for beforehand. The trains for those exceptional 
periods should be duly published, and no deviation in 
the shape of occasional trains allowed. If it be said, 
" But would it not be hard to allow any people to be 
left behind?" the answer must be, "Would it not be 
harder if any were killed to accommodate them ? 
The argument takes for granted that as many trains 
are permitted to go as the railway rolling stock, plant, 
and staff, and the inflexible limit of time, will allow to 
go with safety ; that is, the utmost is done that the 
fairly-computed powers of the railway can perform. 
Do you wish that it should do more that it can do ?" 

Supposing it laid down as a principle by any railway 
company that it would allow of no extemporaneous 
trains, or sudden departure from its settled programme : 
that only such and such a number of trains, of given 
magnitude, should start during the twenty-four hours, 
then the ambition (as it would be the true glory) of its 
Directory should be to take the uttermost pains to make 
the entire machinery work with something approaching 
the equable movement of some of the steam engines 



Railway Accidents. 285 

attached to our great factories; — engines which the 
engineer takes as much pride in as a captain takes in 
his ship, and whose well-oiled joints move with all 
the regularity of clock-work, all the smoothness of 
animal mechanism, and almost the noiselessness of an 
infant's breathing. And this might be done under 
such conditions as those just specified, — adjusted as 
these would be to the capacities of the Railway itself, 
and not the possible demands of the public. Then, 
the same duties having to be performed in the same 
manner and measure by the same officials day after 
day, and the daily routine becoming as fixed and 
familiar to all concerned as in a well-ordered factory 
or a well-drilled army, we might look for a rarity of 
accidents and a degree of punctuality which it were 
Utopian to expect now. Then, would directors and 
shareholders boast that for so many years no accident 
of any kind had taken place on their line, and reap 
well-earned reputation and public confidence, and 
consequently solid profit too, from the proverbial 
punctuality of their trains. Then, might we hope that 
even those mythical fractions of five minutes, within 
the visionary limits of which Bradshaw often mockingly 
tells us that we are to start or arrive, but which are 
felt at present to be simply droll, might be counted 
upon. Then we might really expect to arrive or start 
at n '58 a.m., or 5 -59 p.m., those shadowy epochs which 
are now paraded with strange hypocritical purism of 



286 Railway Accidents. 

punctuality, — much as if a man notorious for never 
keeping an appointment promised to meet you at three 
seconds and a half to ten, or between the third and 
sixth stroke of twelve ! Then would officials on the 
line, and the plate-layers (source of terrible danger !), 
counting on the immutable arrangements and perfect 
punctuality of the trains, know within a fraction of a 
minute precisely at what time in any given locality 
such and such a train might be expected, and provide 
accordingly. Then would it be the triumph of two 
trains to pass each other daily within a dozen yards of 
the very same spot, as it used to be of two first-rate 
coaches in the old coaching days, to arrive at the same 
moment at the same stables to change horses. 

It would be well to remember, that it no more follows, 
because we have " railways," that the whole popula- 
tion can go in the same direction on the same day 
or hour, than it followed in the palmy days of coaches, 
that all who might desire to travel by the four- 
in-hand in consequence of its wonderful superiority 
over the old waggon, could go by it. In those^days 
nothing was more common, as those of the last 
generation can remember, than for passengers to post- 
pone their journey till the next day, or even in times 
of pressure, for several days ; at all events, to take 
security against such accident, by bespeaking places 
long before the time,* 

* Nor need it be apprehended that if the number of trains 



Railway A ccidents. 287 

And when, in those days, men could not go, they 
did not think it reasonable to ask that every spavined 
jade, and every tumble-down vehicle, and every in- 
different Jehu, should be pressed into the public 
service ; or that a system should be extemporised, by 
which twice as many should be carried as the legiti- 
mate provision could meet ; and least of all would 
they have pressed for it, if they had been told that 
every one of the vehicles must go in the very same 
ruts on the same "six-foot" roadway, with no possi- 
bility of passing one another except at certain distant 
spots ; — the pleasant alternatives being that all of 
them, however unequal in load, or however miserably 
horsed, or by whomsoever driven, must either happily 
reach those harbours of refuge, or miraculously maintain 
a uniform speed with the swiftest, or submit to be run 
down by the dashing four-in-hand ! Yet this is really 
no very extravagant picture of what takes place when 
all the world is resolved to be set upon wheels ; that 
is, when the holiday mania is full upon us. Old 
asthmatic engines, that wheeze and cough as if every 



were simply determined by the justly-computed capacities of the 
rail, not by the possible demands of the public at some ex- 
ceptional moment, any disappointment worth mentioning would 
accrue ; it would be trifling, at all events, as set against the 
order, regularity, and safety, which would be introduced into the 
system. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, all would still 
be able to go ; not only those who must, but those who wished 
to go. 



288 Railway Accidents. 

gasp would be the last, old carriages, hardly good 
enough for firewood, are ' sometimes pressed into the 
service of the " excursion trains," and remorselessly 
interpolated in the general traffic ; and these, with the 
swift express, and the jog-trot ordinary trains, and the 
slow luggage-trains, (all keeping bad time, because the 
whole system is overtaxed,) are set on the same line 
of rails, to take their chance of dodging each other 
through the livelong summer day, till some fatal 
catastrophe awakens the public mind into common 
sense for a moment ! 

But it may be said, " One inevitable consequence 
of any attempt to reduce the railway system to that 
perfection of movement, to which, like every other 
great machine, it may and ought to be brought, would 
be, to abolish all special trains, except under circum- 
stances of the most urgent public necessity ; for 
example, all extemporised ' pleasure-trip trains ' must 
be abandoned." 

I fear it must be admitted. Yet such is the popu- 
larity of those trains, and such the reputed revenue 
from them, that it would perhaps be hopeless to touch 
the subject, were it not (as seems to many of us) very 
possible to give the public nearly the same, or at all 
events equal advantages, and to secure to the railways 
probably as large returns, by other means. 

In the first place, the system of " excursion tickets " 
by the ordinary trains, at a reduction of fare, and for 



Railway Accidents. 289 

various periods — a system happily more and more 
acted upon — goes far to meet one of the objects of 
the excursion trains ; and with this signal advantage, 
that as these tickets are always to be had during the 
season, the immense crowds which would otherwise 
swarm into the extraordinary " excursion trains" are 
broken up into small parties, going at different times, 
at their own convenience, and (best of all) by the 
07- dinar y trains ; thus interpolating nothing in the 
railway machinery. Secondly, we cannot see why the 
system of ordinary return tickets at the reduced fares 
should not be more largely resorted to. If it can 
pay to grant them from Saturday to Monday, it seems 
very hard to suppose that they would not be equally 
profitable between Monday and Wednesday, or for 
any other three days.* Nor would they be without 
one special advantage to the Companies of competing 
lines ; for it would insure the passengers coming back 
by the same route. Many a man has gone from 
Birmingham by the North- Western and returned by 
the Great Western, for the sole reason {experto crede) 
that he happened to be nearer Paddington than 
Euston at the time of returning ; but if he had a 
return ticket, it would be well worth while to take a 
little trouble to return by the same line. In these 

* Since this was written, the suggestion has been partially, 
and for certain periods, acted upon. But there seems no reason 
why the plan should not be general and permanent. 

U 



290 Railway Accidents. 

ways, the extension of the system of excursion tickets 
and return tickets, as part and parcel of the ordinary 
working trains, and not as an improvised supplement 
to them, would in a good degree prove a substitute 
for the extraordinary excursion trains. Thirdly, there 
are " excursion trains " proper, which might still be 
retained ; for as they go on certain days, during the 
season, at a fixed hour, and as regularly as any others, 
they are, in fact, but part of the regular trains, only 
charging a lower rate ; and the only caution to be 
observed is that they should not be of undue weight 
or dimensions, or such in frequency as to interfere 
with the perfect regularity of the working of the entire 
system. Fourthly, as a yet further means of meeting 
the difficulty in question, a company might grant to a 
certain moderate number of excursionists, — say, as 
many as would fill two or three carriages, — tickets at 
reduced fares by any one of the ordinary trains, and 
that too with but little additional expense to them- 
selves. This is beginning to be done on some lines, 
and I should imagine might be done more frequently. 
It would be attended with this signal advantage, that 
instead of " monster pleasure trains," the parties now 
composing them would necessarily be divided into 
different groups, and go on different occasions, at 
their own convenience, and (which is still the chief 
point) by the ordinary trains ; instead of forming 
huge separate trains, crawling along like immense 



Railway A ccidents. 291 

centipedes, dangerous from their bulk, and trebly 
dangerous as extemporaneously introduced into the 
system. It may not be possible to bring down the 
fares in such a case quite so low as when a thousand 
go in the same train ; nor is it, perhaps, desirable : 
but the slight difference of price would be amply 
compensated by the choice of time given to the 
excursionists, their greater comfort in travelling, 
and the greater security both to themselves and the 
public. 

Such, and probably some other methods, might be 
devised for giving to the public, by the regular trains, 
many, if not all the advantages, of extraordinary 
excursion trains ; but whether the compensations be 
equivalent or not, it is certain that the public might 
well accept them as the price of the absolute abolition 
of these last. It ought to be, and some day assuredly 
will be, thought, as absurd a thing to intercalate an 
excursion train among the regular trains, as to let a 
fool amuse himself with throwing pebbles among the 
revolving wheels of a complicated piece of machinery, 
or wantonly transfusing fluids into the human circula- 
tion. The success of any system (in this case of the 
last importance, involving the issues of life and death, 
as well as the destruction or safety of an immense 
amount of property,) depends on the smoothness, 
regularity of movement, and punctuality in the work- 
ing of the machinery, and to introduce sudden and 



292 Railway Accidents. 

extemporised changes of functions into it is the last of 
absurdities. The management of the railway system 
necessarily involves manifold and most formidable 
obstacles, which must be encountered whether we 
will or not. But to add to them all, by every now 
and then casting on the rails a huge, lumbering, and, 
from its very nature, crowded and proverbially un- 
punctual train, will, perhaps, one day be regarded as 
infinitely more absurd than it would have been to 
allow the old mail coaches to make a detour to any 
village on either side their route, to " tout " for 
chance passengers ; or to allow the twopenny postman 
to go out of his beat to deliver parcels on private 
commission. Vast machinery like that of the Post 
Office or the Railway, can only be brought to perfec- 
tion of method and working, by keeping it strictly to 
its proper business, and aiming to make it, by the 
similarity of each day's proceedings, as regular as 
clockwork. 

It may be said that a great recommendation of the 
excursion trains is their cheapness, and so it is ; but 
the public safety is a yet higher consideration, even 
were the compensations on which we have just 
insisted of less value than they are. 

But there is also another aspect of the case. To 
accommodate the masses by letting them travel a 
hundred miles for the half, or in some cases the fifth, 
of what you charge the regular passengers, is ail very 



Railway Accidents. 293 

well \ but if the benefit to the first be attended with 
large diminution of the advantages promised to the last, 
and (what is still worse) a sensible increase of their 
danger, it is in the highest degree unjust. However 
desirable it may be to give the bulk of the population the 
opportunity of getting for a half-a-crown a commodity 
of nearly the same kind and value that you are selling 
to another class for a guinea, it certainly seems 
nothing less than downright cheating to do this by 
diminishing the value of that for which you have 
already charged the higher price. I remember hear- 
ing a man plead that no harm is done to the regular 
traveller who has paid a couple of guineas because 
five hundred excursionists in front of him are going to 
the same place for a third of the sum • and that to 
complain, is to imitate the labourers who grumbled 
that the good man in the parable " did what he liked 
with his own 1" But surely a more inept appeal to 
Scripture authority cannot well be imagined. For 
the " householder " did not diminish the value of the 
"penny" he paid to each; whereas the railway 
company who charges you a guinea for a ticket, and 
then throws down on the rails before you a monster 
train which does its best to delay, to hamper, and 
perhaps upset you, has not only given others for a 
much lower price the same commodity you have 
bought, but has seriously diminished the value of what 
it sold you at the higher rate. Any accommodation, 



294 Railway Accidents. 

in the way of cheapness, to the masses should surely 
not be attended with that consequence. 

Certainly none need wonder that accidents occur 
when such scenes of confusion are possible as some of 
us saw last Whitsuntide at one of the principal railway 
centres : — five hundred persons, at least, standing on 
the platform, and others every moment crowding in ; 
excursionists, and such of us as were ordinary 
travellers, all mixed up in hopeless confusion ; trains 
suddenly projected, unknown to Bradshaw or to the 
officials down the line ; contradictory directions from 
bewildered guards and porters as to which of two 
trains, standing on parallel lines of rail, was the train 
for us. After trying in vain to reconcile these dis- 
crepancies, several of us seated ourselves in one of 
these trains, with about as much assurance that it was 
the right one as if we had cast lots for it. We might 
as well have done so ; for we soon found ourselves 
sweeping past the station for which we had taken our 
tickets, and never halted till we had got ten miles 
past our destination. We were offered, it is true, a 
free passage back by an up-train, but not till we had 
had the privilege of waiting an hour for it ! We 
amused ourselves, during the interval, in looking at 
the numerous trains which stopped or rolled by to the 
amazement of the curious porters in this carnival of 
Whitsuntide. "What train is this that is coming?" 
said one of our party. " I don't know, sir," replied 



Railway Accidents. 295 

the porter : " several trains have come down this 
evening that we know nothing about \ and there are 
far too few of us to attend to them properly. But it 
is holiday time, sir. and we can't help it" A day or 
two after the same answer was given by an evidently 
over-worked and exhausted porter, who had been 
toiling to get off an express train at another great 
station. It was just twenty minutes after its time, and 
was not to stop till it was sixty miles out of town ! 
" There are not enough of us, sir," he gasped, ;; to get 
the trains out at the right time ; and if folks will travel 
all together, and each with luggage enough to stock 
a pawnbroker's shop, they must take their chance." 

I was travelling in another express train, only a 
few days afterwards, which also started twenty minutes 
after time, and vainly tried to make up for it during 
the mid passage * it was the old story of the good 
man, who said he had lost a quarter of an hour in the 
morning, and was running after it all day long, and 
could not catch it. " This," said a gentleman, who 
was sitting opposite to me, as he saw the desperate 
speed at which we were going — " this is one of the 
ways by which accidents, as they call them, are pro- 
duced ; let us hope there are no plate-layers who have 
neglected their duty to-day !" 

It has been suggested by a contemporary that 
luggage trains should never be permitted on the 
passenger-line of rails, but should in every case have 



296 Railway Accidents. 

their own rails. This would indeed be an admirable 
improvement, if it can be effected ; but if it cannot, 
or till it can, it might be well to consider whether the 
day might not be given to the passengers, and the 
night to traffic ; whether, for example, after the night- 
mails had started (say at 12 p.m.), the seven next 
hours might not be wholly given to the luggage- 
trains ? 

It being of such immense importance to safety that 
the utmost precision and punctuality should be at- 
tained in the movements of the entire machinery, 
nothing that embarrasses it and tends to throw it out 
of gear can be considered trivial. Now there are two 
things which greatly tend to produce that most fruit- 
ful source of mischief — unpunctuality \ and which, as it 
seems to me, might be remedied. I may err in that 
supposition ; but, if not, I am sure that a reform in 
the points referred to would not only greatly contri- 
bute to the safe working of the system, but be of 
incalculable convenience to the traveller in many 
respects. 

The first is the tormenting system of " ticket 
giving," at the little crowded " hatch," where they sell 
those preliminaries of a journey. You are at the 
station, I will suppose, in good time \ that is, a 
quarter of an hour before the train starts, before 
which, indeed, you cannot get a ticket ; though it by 
no means follows that you can get them then. You 



Railway Accidents. 297 

leave, it may be, a lady in the crowded station, or 
(after vainly glancing through the throng for a porter) 
a quantity of luggage, in a state of orphanage, on the 
platform, — and rush to the little ticket-hole: which, 
to your great disgust, you find still shut, and besieged 
by a dozen other claimants. In the rear of these, 
with sullen impatience, you take your stand, thinking 
that the train will certainly go without you : or, if not, 
that in the desperate rush of the last minute you will 
be separated from your companion, or (what is per- 
haps as bad) be divorced from your luggage ; or that 
this last will be left behind altogether, or made to 
take a journey, not by rail, with some one on the look- 
out for such strays. Meantime the door continues 
closed for five, I have often known it for seven, 
minutes after the appointed time ; you hear the clerks 
talking with provoking coolness behind the scenes? 
just as if they were not defrauding you and the public 
of the time the company had promised you, and in 
utter contempt of the admonitory taps on the portal, 
given by the foremost in this miserable procession of 
ticket-victims. At last the door opens, and you are 
in the stream for the window; but your arms are 
pinioned close to your sides by the crowd, and you 
offer the most inviting opportunity to any light- 
fingered gentleman who may be behind you. To 
make the matter worse, you hear little dialogues 
between the seller and the buyer of the ticket, until 



298 Railway Accidents. 

every moment seems an age ; you think it can never 
come to your turn until the very moment the fatal 
whistle shall be heard. " Can you tell me," says one 
to the clerk, " whether this train stops at Muddleham 
station ?" "I will tell you in a minute" says the 
obliging clerk; just as if minutes at that moment were 
to be so improvidently wasted. Another wants change 
for a five-pound note, and the clerk begs to know 
whether he has not enough in gold and silver, and 
the gentleman proceeds to rummage his pockets in 
search of it. A third is told that he has got to the 
wrong train ; that train does not stop at his station at 
all, and he finds he has been emphatically "the wrong 
man in the wrong place," both to clerks and passen- 
gers. A fourth asks for you know not what, but you 
impatiently see that you must wait while the clerk 
gives a written pass ; another asks for " seven and 
four halves, first-class, and two second-class," and 
then doubts whether the official has computed the 
value quite right : and so it goes on, till, if you were 
not hindered by the crowd, you would rush away into 
the train, and settle with the ticket-collectors as you 
might, at the end of your journey. The only conso- 
lation is the entire unanimity of execration with which 
the long column of victims exclaim against this un- 
reasonable arrangement for getting tickets, but espe- 
cially against keeping the "hatch" shut after the 
stipulated time. Let it be at the height of the 



Railway Accidents, 299 

travelling season (as at Easter or Midsummer), or 
let there be some interesting affair (such as a Visita- 
tion or a fight, a race or a Church-congress) going on 
in the neighbourhood, and the annoyance often be- 
comes perfectly insupportable ; and, what is worse, 
too often ends in delaying the train some minutes. 

Now, why should the public be subject to this 
perpetual inconvenience? Why should it be im- 
possible to get a ticket except during that magic 
quarter of an hour; of some minutes of which (all 
too brief as it is) the public is often defrauded, and 
always of course, in the nature of the case, when it 
will be attended with the "greatest unhappiness to 
the greatest number," that is, when the pressure on 
the railway is heaviest, and the travelling mania at its 
height. Why should there not be a clerk or clerks 
with nothing else to do but to sell tickets ail day long 
for each day's trains, like any other commodity? 
Nay, some have even asked why the greater Com- 
panies should not issue railway " notes," with the 
company's "promise to pay," — that is, to convey the 
holders to the destination specified in the notes, — 
" on demand," but within a given date. But if this 
be thought too much, why at all events might not the 
former of these plans be adopted? I have sometimes 
appealed to influential directors of railways, who have 
acknowledged that they see no sufficient reason why 
it should not. There will be a greater risk, it may be 



300 Railway Accidents. 

said, of forged tickets. Well, of course, some risk of 
this kind there will be; but it need be no greater than 
in the case of bank-notes, cheques, or postage-stamps. 
Practically, it is found possible so far to guard against 
risk of forgery in all these things as to make the crime 
a rare occurrence, and an infinitesimal evil compared 
with depriving the world of the advantages of them. 
What would you say if you had to purchase every 
postage-stamp at the very moment you posted your 
letter, and that that moment must be somewhere in 
the quarter of an hour preceding the post's going out ! 
If the system can be altered, it is really discreditable 
to the railway companies that, for so many years, they 
have not found a remedy. How pleasant would it be 
if, instead of the pressure, hurry-scurry, and chafing of 
the present barbarous system, the traveller could get 
his ticket at any time of the day \ if he could get it 
as he casually passed, or as his servant passed, the 
station; and then, when the time came for his journey, 
have nothing to do but to take his way through the 
station and into the carriage, just as the train was 
starting. The present plan is only one degree better 
than that adopted (but of course soon abandoned) 
when the railway system first came in, namely, that of 
writing out a licence for each individual passenger, 
just as each was duly entered on the way-bill in the 
old coaching days ! 

The second point in which reform (if it can be 



Railway Accidents. 30 j 

effected) would greatly facilitate punctuality in the 
trains, and add to the convenience of the public, 
respects the management of the luggage. To many, 
the thought of what may become of that, is the great 
burden of their journey; their souls maybe said to 
be, all along, hovering between their bodies and their 
portmanteau. The Romans well called luggage "im- 
pedimenta ;" it is so in a sense never intended by 
them, for if it does not hinder the railway traveller's 
rate of going, it sorely hinders his peace of mind, I 
have even known those in whom the fond care about 
it confessedly destroys all the pleasure of a journey ! 
Many a nervous person in vain tries to maintain 
magnanimous indifference about it. He diligently 
inquires as to where it is placed ; in what van, or on 
the roof of what carnage ; he wants to know where it 
" shifts ;" he takes a reassuring peep at it in the van, 
at those deceitful "junctions;" and is constantly 
afraid lest something should happen to that other 
body, to which his soul is continually transmigrating.. 
And when it is to be ascertained whether it be safe 
at last, and claimed (especially if it be at the great 
centres and in the height of the season), dire is the 
scene of scrambling and selfish eagerness. What 
anxiety in each to be ready to pounce on it the 
moment it emerges from the van, lest it should be 
seized in the clutch of some wrongful claimant ! 
What pressing to look into the van, in spite of re- 



302 Railway Accidents. 

monstrance from guard and porter ! What peril of 
having the toes crushed by some descending box of 
enormous dimensions from the shoot which unlades 
the roof of the carriages ! 

They manage these things much better on the 
Continent ; even in many parts of the United States, 
nay even in Canada. On the Continent the chief point, 
— the great desideratum of an unembarrassed mind, — 
is effectually secured at once ; the beneficent despots 
take your luggage from you altogether, pronouncing 
an absolute divorce between you and it ; so that you 
see it no more till you have reached your destination, 
even though you be parted during the perilous passage 
of half-a-dozen junctions, or even a parenthetical sea 
voyage. Happy, blissful freedom from the gross en- 
cumbrance, the " mortal coil," of box or portmanteau ! 
When shall this be the glorious lot of the traveller on 
the English railways ? When shall he enter the 
carriage, happily disembodied of his luggage ; stripped 
of his all, but all the richer for it ? When shall he be 
in that degagee state in which he makes a long journey 
with nothing but his faithful umbrella to take care of? 

It is sometimes said that the impatience of English- 
men, their disposition to account time as money, and 
to consider the loss of every moment as a certain 
per-centage on . their gains, would never allow them to 
submit to regulations which might be attended with 
a little irksome delay. To this it may be answered, 



Railway Accidents. 303 

that if public convenience and safety require them, it 
is not very complimentary to our countrymen to sup- 
pose that they would not acquiesce ; or prefer un- 
necessary anxiety, confusion, and selfish scrambling, 
to order, and freedom from care, purchased by a few 
minutes' delay. But a still better answer is, that the 
present want of all method in this matter occasions 
far greater delay than the orderly transaction of the 
luggage-business would do. 

But, if the Englishman dislikes the formality of the 
Continental method, surely a very simple modification 
of the present plan might be suggested, which would 
at least obviate the traveller's anxiety about his 
luggage ; and that would be no light advantage. The 
greater part of the railways already ticket the luggage, 
leaving the traveller to claim it, though without any 
guarantee that he is the right person to claim it, and 
without any responsibility for its due delivery to the 
right owner. Now, if it were made a uniform rule by 
the railway companies that no luggage should be put 
into the vans or on the roof that had not their ticket 
of destination affixed to it ; if these tickets were 
printed in duplicate, and numbered, (say from 1 to 
1000, that they might not be soon exhausted, at least 
not by any. one train) ; and if, as each was affixed by 
a porter to a box or portmanteau, he tore off the 
counterpart, and handed it to the passenger, the latter 
would have the guarantee in his pocket that his 



304 Railway Accidents. 

luggage could not be claimed by any improper person, 
and all he would have to do would be to give - the 
duplicates to the guard when his proper number of 
packages was handed out on the platform. This 
would, at all events, obviate the plague of thinking 
about, and taking care of, one's luggage during the 
transit, and all fear of its passing into any hands but 
those of the right owner. Those much-to-be-pitied 
travellers, whose minds are so apt to live in their 
portmanteaus, might with perfect serenity give them- 
selves up to the newspaper or the scenery, without 
being troubled at stations or junctions lest any wrong- 
ful person should carry off that deposit for which they 
had got due security. The possession of these same 
tickets would enable them, when the train reached its 
terminus, still to arm themselves with patience ; they 
need not rudely press on others, or be pressed upon, 
in the attempt to get hold of their luggage at the 
earliest possible instant ; while quiet souls, who hate 
all scrambling, and would sooner wait half an hour 
than have anything to do with it, would stay till the 
more impatient crowd had thinned away, without any 
fear of being thereby defrauded of their own. If it 
be said that any such methodical proceedings, and 
a system of duplicate tickets, would cause the 
company some additional trouble and expense, and 
that they could not be expected to carry it out with- 
out a trivial charge, I fancy there are few travellers who 



Railway Accidents. 



O^D 



would object to some trifle (say a halfpenny or a 
penny each packet) : or who would not feel that it was 
amply repaid by the transfer of the responsibility of 
the luggage to the railway authorities, and the conse- 
quent freedom from all care on the part of the traveller. 
For myself. I should think that for such a charge, or 
double the amount. I had an ample quid pro quo. 

Some such system would be attended by two other 
signal advantages, — more especially if a portion of 
these trifling fees were spent in an increase of wages 
to the porters, or in increasing their number when 
necessary.'' One is. that it would do away entirely 
with a practice which the railway companies earnestly 
and rightly, yet vainly deprecate. — a practice attended 
with very pernicious consequences to the public. — 
the clandestine feeing of their servants. In ninety- 
nine cases out of a hundred this corrupting practice 
— of which almost every one of us is more or less 
guilty, in spite of the laws of the companies — 
originated in extra trouble given about the luggage ; 
now, if a small charge were made on it, and especially 
if it in part benefited the porters themselves, the 
public would have neither reason nor inclination to 

break the companies' laws on this score : and I am 

\ 
* Whether a portion of such fair profit from a better adminis- 
tration of the luggage system might not enable the companies to 
meet any reasonable den-lane's of the engineers better than by 
capriciously raising the price of a certain class of tickets, may be 
worthy of consideration. 

X 



306 Railway Accidents. 

firmly convinced that nothing but some such regula- 
tion as I have hinted at will correct the practice. 

The second advantage of some such regulation is 
more particularly connected with the chief subject of 
the present essay, — namely, the best mode of 
obviating dangerous delays and unpunctuality in the 
trains ; for, under such regulations, every traveller 
would naturally endeavour to minimise his luggage. 
Whether, indeed, still more stringent rules may not be 
ultimately required in order to limit the quantity of 
luggage, may be a question ; for the present tendency 
to take mountain-loads of it, is a perpetual cause of 
delay and irregularity. But, at any rate, such regula- 
tions as those just suggested would pro tanto tend to 
diminish it. Each man who could do it, would re- 
strict himself to a modest portmanteau, not exceeding 
in cubical dimensions the space allotted to him under 
his own seat, and would thus exempt himself from all 
trouble, as well as all payment in the matter ; but, at 
all events, if he were obliged to have recourse to the 
van, he would put as little there as possible. At 
present, the want of stringent regulations as to the 
quantity of luggage, and especially the immunity from 
any fees, leads people to abuse the indulgence of the 
rail most unconscionably. The huge pile of luggage 
looks sometimes as if the folks who owned it were 
not merely taking a journey, but moving with all their 
household gods and goods to a new residence. 



Railway Accidents. 307 

Packages may often be descried which ought in all 
fairness to go by the luggage-train, — perambulators, 
beds, baths, and apparently half the furniture of sea- 
side lodgings or shooting-boxes. The trunks of ladies, 
again, often assume most alarming proportions, due in 
part, probably (if one may profanely speculate on 
their mysterious contents), to the ample skirts of 
modern fashion. In height and breadth, and the 
tremendous arch of the roof, they look more like 
young churches than boxes. 

Let it not be imagined that this excess of luggage 
is a thing of little consequence ; it is largely con- 
nected with the want of punctuality in the trains, 
is often the chief cause of the delay in starting, 
and occasions slight additional delays at the in- 
termediate stations, — to say nothing of the con- 
fusion it often produces on the platform of the 
principal termini. Anything that would tend, there- 
fore, to contract this ever-expanding volume, and 
reduce it within narrower limits, would be of essential 
benefit to the public, and materially add to the safety, 
by increasing the punctuality, of the trains \ and even 
the ladies, who now are apt to abuse their privilege, 
and take up more than their share of space in the 
vans, as they do at concerts and in churches, would 
have a compensation for the diminished luggage in 
the greater care wherewith it would be treated. I 
fancy it would go near to break the heart of many 



308 Railway Accidents. 

a young damsel if she could see the irreverence with 
which her treasures, the Keifx-qXca of fashion, are often 
treated ; the rude violence with which they are thrown 
into and out of the van, or turned topsy-turvy. On 
peeping into it, how often may we see the huge tin 
boxes, with all their sacred contents, reposing on their 
arched roofs, to the infinite shame of irreverent guards 
and porters ! 

It would be another advantage of any arrangements 
which tend to reduce the railway system to equable 
working, and to get rid both of all occasional trains, 
and of any trains of undue dimensions, that it would 
divide the crowds, which now, in times of pressure, 
throng the platforms, and tend to throw the whole 
official machinery of the railway out of gear. " Monster 
trains'' will in time lead, and indeed they have 
already led, to a variety of mischiefs and evils which 
gravely threaten the comfort, even where they do not 
endanger the safety, of passengers. Among them is 
a rapid development of selfishness, of eager and 
frantic impatience in each man to secure his own 
immediate advantage, to the utter neglect of the 
interests of others. The way in which a " monster " 
crowd of " excursionists " sometimes rush to secure 
their places, and thrust, and jostle, and push one 
another to obtain them, is, as Sam Slick would say, a 
" caution to behold." They look as if they had under- 
gone a sudden " transmutation of species," and remind 



Railway Accidents. 309 

one rather of pigs rushing to their troughs than of 
civilised creatures. Nor can this impatient selfish- 
ness be said to be a mere inconvenience ; it is 
often most dangerous. The fatal railway casualties 
of last year include three persons who were thrown 
under the wheels, at the very moment of starting, by 
the crowds rushing into the carriages. 

Another evil connected with the present system of 
taking unlimited numbers by the same train (and it 
is a growing one), is that of confounding the distinc- 
tion of " classes," and defrauding him who has paid 
the price of a higher ticket, of the specific advantages 
for which he purchased it. When the train crosses 
some meridian where a fair, or a fight, or a race has 
been going forward, third-class passengers, under the 
pretext of there not being room enough, are often 
stowed into second-class carriages, and both third and 
second-class passengers sometimes thrust into first- 
class carriages, — the intruders being often not at all 
the more agreeable for their recent riotous companion- 
ship. 

Similarly, even on the lines on which "smoking 
carriages " are allowed, there is so little enforcement 
of the general laws of the companies, that scores even 
of the first-class carriages stink like a tap-room. 
These and many other minor abuses (which are 
evidently on the increase), will require timely watch- 
ing and correction \ otherwise they will infallibly 



3 1 o Railway A ccidents. 

induce a general laxity and slovenliness of manage- 
ment, and a disregard of all fixed regulations, that 
will not only seriously interfere with the comforts of 
the traveller, but indirectly augment the perils of the 
rail. 

It was recently observed in one of the papers (the 
Times, if I mistake not), that the railway officials 
ought to be men not only of superior intelligence, but 
of education and culture. Nothing can be more true. 
As to the guards, porters, and subordinate officials, 
speaking generally, there cannot be a more hard-work- 
ing, civil, obliging set of men. But the chief station- 
masters, and other principal officials ought, in every 
case, to be men of superior sense and information, 
and capable of assuming with their uniforms some of 
the best qualities of military officers ; they should be 
possessed, in a high degree, of firmness, decision, 
patience, self-control, a soldierly reverence of disci- 
pline — almost to idolatry \ they should be prompt to 
render obedience to authority where it is due to others, 
and peremptory in demanding it w^here it is due to 
themselves.* 

* See Appendix (C). 



3 TI 



x. 

LES APOTRE&* 

PHIS work will produce, I apprehend, much the 
same impression as the "Vie de Jesus." The 
reader will readily concede to M. Renan genius. 
learning, taste, an active fancy (only too active, in- 
deed), and elegance of style ; but he will feel, as 
before, that the author seems hopelessly ignorant of 
one simple fact, — that it is impossible to build fabrics 
without materials, or to burn down a house and recon- 
struct it out of the smoke and ashes ; hopelessly igno- 
rant of the limits which divide history from fiction. 

If a man be allowed to treat the only documents to 
which he can appeal as M. Renan does, it is simply 
impossible to construct any authentic history at all. 
Thus the immense majority of his critics felt that his 
"Vie de Je'sus " was a mere romance, and they will 
feel that his " Les Apotres " is nothing more. 

It is, no doubt, quite possible to eliminate some 
few incidents, some unimportant details, from any 

* Les Apdtres. Par Ernest Renan. Michel Levy Freres. 
Paris, 1866. 



312 Les Apotres. 

professedly historical documents, and yet, granting the 
rest to be authentic and genuine, to compose a history 
out of them. But how, if we reject the greater part 
as legendary or false — and not only the greater part, 
measured by mere bulk, but by quality also ? How, if 
we reject all that is most important and characteristic, 
all for which the world has ever valued the docu- 
ments, and without which it would regard the residuum 
of pretended history as fit only for Dr. Dryasdust, or 
the Antiquary's incomparable " Essay on the hill-fort 
of Quicken's-bog ?" How, if in order to clench the 
proof that five-eighths of the whole are to be rejected 
as per se incredible, we load the author with suspicion, 
even where he is dealing with ordinary matters, or 
charge him with downright tampering with his mate- 
rials, as M. Renan in his former work supposed the 
re'dacteurs of the " Gospels," and now supposes the 
author of the "Acts," to have done? How, if even 
the last poor fraction of a dividend, mere dry details, 
are to be suspected ; if even these remains — little 
better than scorice left at the bottom of the critical 
furnace — are so full of error that M. Renan is com- 
pelled to read them upside down, or, like his Hebrew, 
backwards? to re-arrange the dates, or re-adjust the 
circumstances ? How, if all this be the case ? Why 
then it will be said, that though a man may (as M. 
Renan has done) give us a romance, he cannot give 
us a history ; his work must, in the nature of things, 



Les Apotrcs. 313 

be the product of guess-work and fancy. It were as 
feasible to write a history of the Trojan war out of 
the Iliad ; nay, the task would be much the same. 
That " tale of Troy divine " is doubtless founded on 
fact, as are all the greatest epics and dramas ever 
produced by human genius. But on how much that 
is knowable ? So little that, except on M. Renan's 
plan, the history would be in a nut-shell. After getting 
rid of all the superhuman machinery, — of old Chryses 
and his prayers, of the gods and their transformations, 
of miracles and prodigies, of the exaggerated achieve- 
ments of Achilles, and very probably of Hector's 
death, — as but one myth the more where there were so 
many, and a suspected embellishment of the " self- 
glorifying " Grecian legend, — the history would be 
reduced to about as much as this : " Once upon a 
time there was a city called Troy. The Greeks made 
war against it, at what exact date is unknown, as also 
how many sailed thither, and who were their leaders. 
The quarrel is said to have been about a woman ; 
and this may be intrinsically probable, inasmuch as a 
great Roman satirist says that most quarrels have a 
similar origin. It is said that after a siege reported to 
be long, but we know not how long, Troy was de- 
stroyed ; which brings us to the end of this brief 
eventful history." There is really little difference in 
the two cases, except that the Iliad has always been 
accepted as fiction, and therefore no one ever thought 



3 1 4 Les Apotres. 

how much he must reject if he wished to make an 
authentic history out of it. The Gospels, on the 
other hand, have been regarded as authentic history ; 
but if M. Renan's method of critical distillation be 
applied to them, quite as little will pass over from the 
alembic. We shall reject as much in proportion, and 
all that is most significant. The historical element 
that is left will be just as infinitesimal in quantity and 
as insignificant in quality. 

If a book manufactured in such wise, and yet 
purporting to be a history, is of no more than equal 
bulk with the rejected documents, it must be, a fortiori, 
as purely fanciful as the original was presumed to be ; 
for the one was at least made out of tradition and 
myth, but the other is made out of nothing. Yet such 
history has M. Renan proffered us ; nay, he has done 
much more. It is as if he had not only first reduced 
the Iliad to nothing by rejecting ail its fiction, and 
then given us the history of Troy out of it, but in a 
bulk equal to the Iliad and Odyssey together ! For 
the Four Gospels are transformed into a volume of no 
less than five hundred pages, and the Acts of the 
Apostles into another of four. Before the theory 
of M. Renan's fictitious Christianity can be fairly 
launched, it will require ten times as much written 
matter as was required to make the original Chris- 
tianity a great fact in the world ! 

His readers, however, will simply say that they 



Lcs Apotres. 315 

cannot receive his history on such conditions, except 
by his previously proving a claim to inspiration or 
divination ; a retro-phetic, if not prophetic, faculty. 
Now, as he denies all possibility of men's possessing 
any such endowment, they also will deny that it is 
possible to destroy the documents of history, and yet 
to reproduce it; — to reject more than half a document 
as per se incredible, reject half the remainder by the 
necessity of getting rid of that, throw endless doubt 
on the rest by indulging in all sorts of damaging 
suspicions of the authors, and then, by drawing on 
conjecture ad libitum^ resuscitate the history which 
has been preliminarily destroyed ! 

Should M. Renan say, by way of apology for 
writing history on such conditions, that we see that 
many books — as Livy's History, for example — contain 
prodigies and legends which we throw aside, and yet 
take the history notwithstanding, I reply just as 
Bolingbroke did (who saw this point as clearly as 
any Christian can do), that everything depends on 
the relative value of what is retained and what is re- 
jected. You may omit every legend, he argued, in 
Livy, and yet the history goes on just as well as 
before: not to say better. But if you reject all 
that is miraculous and superhuman in the history 
of the Bible, all that is necessarily implicated with 
it, grows out of it, and has no meaning apart from it, 
you have nothing left; — what you reject is the history. 



3 16 Les Aftotres. 

The difference, in short, is as between cutting out a 
corn and cutting off the head. A man may get along 
quite as well, and indeed a good deal better, without 
his corn ; but what if he has lost his head ? 

My object in the present article will be simply to 
show — 

I. That a history of the first days of Christianity, 
if M. Renan's view of his materials be correct, is 
impossible. And, II. That if such a history were 
possible, it is still incredible that his history should be 
true. 

I. In order to see how nearly M. Renan annihilates 
the materials of his history before he begins to com- 
pose it; how little is left which he does not summarily 
reject in virtue of his (I must so call it) fanatical view 
of the supernatural, and how uncertain he further 
makes that little, either by its necessary implication 
with such legendary matter, or by a general depre- 
ciation of his authorities, in order to reconcile us to 
his wholesale confiscations, let us look at the poor 
relics of the Acts after his successive rejections. We 
shall then be filled with wonder, that so portly a 
volume as this, of four hundred pages, has grown, not 
out of such a literary " mustard-seed " as the Acts, but 
out of less than a third of it ! 

M. Renan frankly acknowledges that the Acts 
form the principal source of our knowledge of the 
first days of the Christian Church; he agrees that 



Les Apotres. 317 

they are the genuine work of Luke, the author of 
the third Gospel : that he was a disciple of Paul, and 
Paul's fellow-traveller, wherever he so represents him- 
self (and here, we think, M. Renan argues with great 
candour and acuteness, though, as we think, ruinously 
for his own thesis) ; and that they were composed in 
all probability before a.d. 80. Most people, indeed, 
think earlier; but M. Renan, arguing upon his favour- 
ite assumption that there neither is nor can be such a 
thing as prophecy, has a succinct way of showing that 
the date could not have been earlier. The Acts, he 
urges, not unreasonably, were composed after the 
third Gospel; and the third Gospel contains an ex- 
press prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, which 
must therefore have been written after that event ! 
Xow that event did not occur till a.d. 70; ergo, the 
third Gospel could not have been composed till after 
that date, and the Acts later still ! But let us take his 
own date. 

Our author, then, admits that Luke was the writer 
of the. " Acts," and that they were written not later 
than a.d. 80. Such is his grand authority, — hisfons 
gestorum. Now, how much does he summarily reject? 
And how much of the little that remains can be 
imagined trustworthy when we appraise it on the 
principles by which M. Renan determines Luke's 
general character, — which in fact he hopelessly 
damages in order to give greater plausibility to his 



3 18 Les Apotres. 

enormous excisions of the supernatural? We shall 
soon see. 

The " Acts " would appear not to be capable of 
enduring much depletion without vanishing into thin 
air. Luke is not, like M. Renan, a voluminous writer. 
The whole of this wonderful book, the very ashes of 
which, after M. Renan's critical incremation, have 
mainly enabled him to write so goodly a volume, is 
contained in about thirty pages of our quarto Bibles ! 
It is not therefore, a corpulent folio, which may be 
bled and bled and bled again : it must, if much be 
taken away, give up the ghost altogether. 

Well, then, in the first place, Si. Renan utterly 
discredits the first twelve chapters — i.e. nearly half; 
and plainly it is a necessity, for they are full of 
" legendary matter," — of miracles, and alleged ful- 
filment of prophecy ; in fact, the supernatural. They 
are no less legendary than the Gospels themselves. 
But is there not much of the legendary, also, in the 
subsequent chapters ? Plenty, of course ; and it must 
be deleted by the same summary method. In 
chap. xiii. you must sponge out the story of Sergius 
Paulus, and Elymas the sorcerer ; in chap. xiv. Paul's 
healing the cripple, and the consequent apotheosis 
offered him and Barnabas at Lystra. Chap, xv., 
though it contains nothing miraculous, is, as we shall 
see by-and-by, quite untrustworthy on other grounds. 
Chap. xvi. is almost wholly to be rejected, for we 



Les A pot res. 319 

have Paul casting out the spirit of divination, and the 
miraculous deliverance of Paul and Silas from prison. 
Irr chapter xviii. we have one of Paul's visions, which. 
though not miraculous, but only an " hallucination," is 
not what it purports to be. and is therefore not historic 
in the sense in which it is related. Pn fact, all Paul's 
visions — the result, in plain language, of Paul's being 
out of his senses — vanish on the same ground. In 
chap. xix. you must strike out the legend of " the 
gift of tongues, w imparted to those who. having been 
only baptized with John's baptism, are now baptized 
in the name of Jesus • the " special miracles wrought 
by the hands of Paul, and by handkerchiefs brought 
from his body/' and the Devil's discomfiture of the 
sons of Sceva the Jew, who attempted to conjure 
in the name of Jesus.* Chap. xx. contains the 
raising of Eutychus from his sleep of death : and 
chap xxi. certain supernatural warnings against Paul's 

* " And this was known," says Luke, "to all the Jews and 
Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, and 
the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 5 ' Such solemn as- 
surances as these, when it is impossible that Luke should not 
know what rubbish he was filling his book with, prove that he 
must have been wholly untrustworthy, and make one wonder 
that M. Renan should not see that, on his hypothesis, his docu- 
ments are no better " than old wives' fables.' 5 It is impossible 
to tell on what to rely, or rather, whether we can rely on any- 
thing. It is clear also that that whole generation must have 
been demented, to hear, unchallenged, appeals to the notoriety 
of facts which, if they were not true, must have been known not 
to be so. 



320 Les Apotres. 

going to Jerusalem, the asserted prophetic gifts of 
Philip's four daughters, a prophecy of Agabus, and a 
vision of Paul. Chap. xxii. contains the account 
of Paul's miraculous conversion, already rejected in 
Acts ix. ; and to what M. Renan reduces that, will 
be seen by-and-by. In chap, xxiii. you must re- 
ject another " vision" of Paul's; that is, another 
" illusion," which Paul mistook for a supernatural 
revelation, — altogether unhistoric therefore as it stands. 
In chap. xxvi. we have the narrative of Paul's mira- 
culous conversion again. In chap xxvii. we have 
another " vision " on the occurrence of the shipwreck. 
From chap, xxviii. you must reject Paul's escape from 
the "venomous serpent," and the miraculous cure of the 
"father of Publius," and " many others " in the island. 

Thus, there is scarcely a chapter in which the 
sponge is not to be liberally used, and in many nearly 
the whole is to be erased. The matters retained, and 
which are insignificant except in connection with the 
presumed supernatural substratum, would occupy, as 
near as we can make out, about half the thirty quarto 
pages ! 

But is the whole of even this to be received ? By 
no means. In order to show that Luke may have 
been weak enough to incorporate into his book all 
these " legendary matters," M. Renan invests him with 
all those infirmities which he has found it necessary to 
ascribe to him as the author of the third Gospel, and 



Lcs Apotrcs, 321 

adds others which, almost totidem verbis, but certainly 
by necessary logic, prove that he was also a knave. All 
this. M. Renan does without seeming to recollect that 
he is thereby annihilating his historic materials, and 
sawing away vigorously at the bough on which his own 
fee: are planted. 

In virtue of his view of Luke's character, the whole 
of chap. xv.. and the entire story of St. Paul's first 
interview with the Church at Jerusalem, — of the 
Council, of the Decree, of its publication and circula- 
tion, the cordial understanding between the " Twelve " 
and the Apostle of the Gentiles. — is nothing more 
than a politic fetch of Luke, to conceal the fierce 
antagonism and hopeless incompatibilities which really 
ided the Petrine and the Pauline factions. We 
must, therefore, strike our pen through nearly the 
whole of chap. xv.. and a part of chap. xxi. for the 
same reason. In this last case it is impossible not to 
infer that Luke is deliberately playing the rogue, for 
he avouches himself to be an eye-witness of the facts. 
thus identifying himself with that very -we." the use 
of which M. Renan justly takes for so strong an argu- 
ment that Luke is really the author. His words are. 
•• When we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren 
received us gladly, and the day following Paul went in 
with us to James, and all the elders were present." 

In like manner Luke is made to pervert or tamper 
with the facts in many other cases. If the following 






322 Les ApStres. 

portrait be true, it is wholly impossible to depend on 
one syllable he says : — 

" In two or three circumstances, his wish to make things 
smooth — ses principes de conciliation — has made him seriously 
falsify the biography of Paul ; he is inexact ; and makes omissions 
very strange in a disciple of Paul" (p. xiv.). "He was ill-in- 
formed about Judaism and as to the affairs of Palestine ; he 
scarcely knew anything of Hebrew" (p. xviii.). "The author 
seems to avoid saying anything that might wound the Romans. 
... He played much such a part as an Ultramontane historian 
of Clement XIV. . . He was the first of those accommodating 
historians, happily self-satisfied, who are determined to find that 
everything in the Church is going on after the Evangelical 
model" (p. xxiv.). "Historical fidelity is for him a thing in- 
different — edification is everything" (ibid.). 

Most amusingly does M. Renan infer Luke's strong 
Roman sympathies from his recording that Paul 
pleaded his Roman citizenship at Philippi, and that 
protection was sometimes afforded by the imperial 
magistrates against the persecuting spirit of the Jews. 
But does not M. Renan see how all this bears on 
his argument ? If these facts really occurred in the 
history of Paul, how could poor Luke help narrating 
them just as they were ? and how is it to be hence 
inferred that he was partial to the Romans ? If they 
did not occur, or so occur, does not M. Renan see that 
he compels us to reject a further indeterminate, but 
large, portion of what little remains of his history, — 
already exhaling in smoke ? 

Further : our author says that Luke, having in his 
Gospel apparently placed the Ascension on the same 



Les Apotres. 323 

day as the Resurrection (though he really does 
nothing of the sort),* deliberately alters his story in 
the first chapter of the Acts. The latter statement 
shows, he says, " a more advanced stage of the 
legend," for it makes the Ascension take place at the 
end of " forty days." M. Renan forgets (who else can 
forget ?) that if it be so, Luke is clearly so hopeless a 
bungler, or so thorough a rogue, as to make it utterly 
impossible to receive any statement of his as trust- 
worthy. Suspicion must taint everything. 

Even M. Renan finds it somewhat surprising that 
Luke should have left such a glaring discrepancy 
(entirely, however, of M. Renan' s own making) 
between the last verses of his Gospel and the first 

* It is astonishing to see how readily M. Renan finds in 
his documents anything he likes to find there, and how com- 
pletely he loses sight of all that is opposed to any present state- 
ment he happens to be making. It is clear that though the 
verse in Luke, recording the ascension, comes immediately after 
the account of the resurrection, no note of time connects them ; 
and it is plain that Luke could not have meant that the ascension 
took place on that day, for he has described the appearance of 
Christ to the disciples after the return of the two from Emmaus, 
and when it was already night ! M. Renan can see clearly 
enough, when it answers his purpose, that the Evangelists do 
not intend to imply that consecutive incidents are to be always 
taken as immediately following one another in point of time. 
For an example, see p. 33, where, strange to say, this very case 
is brought forward (it being now our author's cue to disintegrate 
the recitals in John xxi.) as an example of the practice of the 
Evangelists of giving, as if they were consecutive, facts separated 
by months or weeks ! 



324 Les Apotres. 

verses of the Acts, and which he might by a single 
stroke of his pen so easily have removed. Strange 
enough, he thinks it sufficient to say that the authors 
of the Gospels and the Acts troubled themselves but 
little about accuracy ; but it is still more strange that 
he should think this will account for such shameless 
/^accuracy in an author who (according to M. Renan's 
own admission) shows himself in the latter part of the 
Acts, " astonishingly accurate I" 

Of these charges against Luke, no doubt many of 
M. Renan's critics will give — what is very easy — 
abundant refutation. But for me, I simply take M. 
Renan at his word. Let all he says about Luke be 
true, and he has nothing on which to rely for his 
history of the " origin of Christianity." He is simply 
without materials, and he has (as in his former work) 
been creating history, and not writing it. He has 
given us a sufficient caveat against relying on anything 
from such an author as Luke, if we only take into 
account his negligence and blunders ; but these, com- 
bined with the solemn professions, at the commence- 
ment both of the Acts and of his Gospel, of consci- 
entious research and scrupulous sifting of evidence, 
prove that he can be no less than an incorrigible 
knave. 

And yet it is from such a document, the materials of 
which are to be rejected by wholesale, and on whose 
remaining statements the greatest possible amount of 



Les Apotres. 325 

suspicion must rest (as the necessary result of M. 
Renairs view of Luke's character), that our author tells 
us the history of the origin of Christianity must be 
chiefly constructed ! What value can attach to his 
construction, unless M. Renan be inspired, though 
Luke was not ? or unless he has a real power of 
divining the past, analogous to what he considers the 
fictitious power claimed by the ancient prophets, of 
divining the future ? 

II. I proceed to show that if it were possible to 
write a history of Christianity on M. Renairs princi- 
ples, the history he has given cannot be the true. 

Strauss regarded M. Renan's " Vie de Je'sus " with 
something of Malvolio's " austere smile of regard;" 
complimented him, indeed, on his popularity, but 
at the same time expressed entire dissent from some 
very vital parts of his system. In truth, it was much 
as if one heard Ptolemy congratulating Copernicus on 
the success of his philosophy ; for if Strauss was right 
in those points, it is certain that Renan was egre- 
giously wrong, and if Renan was right, Strauss was 
egregiously wrong. What the latter will say now, I 
know not ; but if he has any of an author's love of his 
offspring, it is to be apprehended that though he may 
still "smile," it will be with tenfold "austerity:" for 
he will see that in many places throughout this volume 
M. Renan's system is little better than a resuscitation 



326 Les Apotres. 

of that of Paulus of Heidelberg, and the other natural- 
istic interpreters, — to which it was imagined that 
Strauss himself had long ago given the coup de grace, 
and which indeed had by its Talmud of absurdities 
wearied out the patience of all mortal men. Strauss' s 
work really did excellent service in this respect ; and 
though a triumph over such a phantom may be 
supposed as small an achievement as Don Quixote's 
victory over the wine-skins, the work was done con 
amore, and with entire success. He will be petrified to 
see the monster, so often pierced by his critical sword> 
coming to life again, like one of those champions in the 
Valhalla, who was no sooner slain than he rose to his 
feet, ever ready to renew the contest. Yet so it is. 
M. Renan might have been a sort of Rip Van Winkle, 
and slept through the din of the critical strife of the 
last forty years, for any effect that the innumerable 
refutations of Paulus and his school have produced 
upon him. As that school resolved every miraculous 
occurrence of the New Testament into some misin- 
terpreted natural phenomenon or ordinary incident, 
which the simplicity or zeal or morbidly-excited fancy 
of Christ's disciples transformed into the supernatural ; 
as it supposed these men often, and even simultaneously, 
(wonder of wonders !) making these blunders, — taking 
flaming flambeaux for stars, white graveclothes for 
living and speaking men, Roman soldiers for angels, 
electric phenomena for the Transfiguration or the 



Lcs Apotres. 327 

Descent of the Spirit, and a thunderstorm for half a 
hundred things ; so M. Renan is perpetually working 
out his intractable problems by essentially the same 
machinery. The difference is mainly this • the phleg- 
matic German would perhaps attribute more to the 
stolidity — not to say stupidity — of the good folks 
who thus took " wind-mills for giants ; " M. Renan, 
with a more mercurial temperament, would chiefly 
attribute their eccentric, transformed " sensations " to 
a distempered imagination, or rather to downright 
maniacal illusions. Both theories suppose the halluci- 
nations to be frequent, and often simultaneous in 
many individuals ; so that all at the very same time 
see the same visions and dream the same dreams, and 
ever after obstinately and soberly take them for reali- 
ties ! 

It is hardly worth while at this time of day, and 
after Strauss's demolition of all the idle fancies of the 
elder naturalism, to ask how the wonderful men, — who 
have left us a system of religion which M. Renan 
acknowledges to be " a new religious code for 
humanity," and who have consigned it to such docu- 
ments as have ever since kept the world spell-bound 
in enchanted error, — could be such " moon-calves." 
I shall content myself with laying before the reader 
some examples of M-. Renan's application of his 
principles, perfectly convinced that most people — even 
the majority of sceptics themselves — will say, " In 



328 Les Apotres. 

whatever way the transactions of which it is sought to 
give an account took place, sure we are it was not in 
this way ; it is impossible to believe that a number of 
persons should go suddenly, simultaneously, harmo- 
niously, and unchangeably mad, unless we become as 
mad as they; and if it were so, it is just as easy to 
believe a miracle in the ordinary sense." To suppose 
that such a system can be any defence to the sceptic, 
is to mistake a sieve for a shield. 

And, first, let us trace the genesis of the Resurrec- 
tion, — as to which, whether the Apostles " dreamed 
dreams," or not, Paulus and M. Renan certainly do. 

It is, I know, a difficult point to manage. Even 
Strauss, (who acknowledges that the revolution which 
took place in the character and bearing of the Apostles 
seems to indicate that something extraordinary had 
transpired in the interval between the death of Christ 
and the day of Pentecost,) evidently finds it hard to 
account for the facts on his much- enduring system of 
myths.* Events, in truth, were too quick for their 

* M. Renan also admits that at the entombment. of Christ his 
disciples were plunged, as they naturally would be, into profound 
despair of their Master's cause. If it be supposed, as it well 
may, difficult to conceive how they should so easily be duped by 
their own morbid illusions, M. Renan meets this antecedent 
improbability by feigning (what is not very consonant to human 
experience when once death has set its seal on our hopes) that 
" Death is a thing so absurd when it strikes down the man of 
genius or the hero, that the common people believe not in the 
possibility of such an error of nature. Heroes never die " (p. 3). 



Les Apotres. 329 

slow growth. No forcing-frames could produce such 
prodigious mythical mushrooms in so short a time. 
Even he, therefore, without adopting it, seemingly re- 
lents a little towards the " natural system " which he 
had so often transfixed with his critical arrows. He 
takes care, it is true, not to commit himself to it, nor 
attempts to justify it as applied in detail. On the 
contrary, he is too cautious for that, and admits that 
if it be resorted to as a general solvent of the facts 
related in the Gospels, it must break down * Here 
he shows his judgment. I suspect he will hardly 
thank M. Renan for venturing to approach so near 
the facts, and pretending to disclose the very psycho- 
logical springs, wheels, and wires by which the auto- 
maton seemed endowed with a preternatural life. M. 



M. Renan cites, as an instance of analogous enthusiasm, a some- 
what unlucky example : "At the moment of Mahomet's death 
Omar rushed out of the tent sabre in hand, and declared that he 
would strike off the head of whoever should say that the Prophet 
was dead." Nevertheless, neither Omar nor any one else 
believed otherwise ! In striking contrast with our author's rhe- 
torical nourish is the express and reiterated declaration of the 
Evangelists (of wdiich, however, he takes little notice) as to the 
persistent incredulity with which the Apostles received the 
tidings of their Master's resurrection ; none (if we are to believe 
them) receiving the fact on any other evidence than his personally 
appearing to them. 

* See vol. hi., p. 369, 4 ed., En. Tr. In the recent edition 
he seems to approach M. Renan' s position, in the stress he lays 
on the "illusions " of Mary Magdalene as the initial step in the 
development of the Resurrection. 



3$o Les Apotres. 

Renan, after some essays in this kind, appears to be 
haunted with a consciousness that his efforts will not 
prove perfectly successful, for he concludes his second 
chapter by saying : " Let us draw the veil over these 
mysteries. In a religious crisis, everything being con- 
sidered Divine, the greatest effects may be produced 
by the most contemptible causes (des causes les plus 
mesquines)." This does not seem very satisfactory or 
perspicuous ; and as M. Renan has not "drawn a veil 
over these mysteries," but given us a conjectural 
history of them, the reader must be admitted to see a 
little of the machinery and more remarkable proper- 
ties of his little theatre. If I mistake not, even those 
who are inclined to sympathise with M. Renan's con- 
clusions, will feel that he is not prudent in attempting 
to resolve the grand phenomena of Christianity into 
such causes mesquines, and that it is wiser to speak of 
possible "myths," or possible "blunders" of heated 
enthusiasts, without a too solicitous application to 
details ; in short, that prudence should lead the scep- 
tic to throw almost as deep a veil over these mysteries 
as that with which the veneration of Christians covers 
them. But the reader shall judge for himself, by 
seeing how, in the absence of historical vouchers, M. 
Renan can give the true rationale of the " apparitions " 
of Christ to Mary Magdalene, to the two disciples 
going to Emmaus, to the assembled apostles at 
Jerusalem, to the disciples at the lake of Tiberias, and 



Lcs A pot res. 331 

to the crowd at his Ascension. — In the extracts the 
italics are my own. 

M. Renan considers the real author of the Resur- 
rection to be Mary of Magdala. He tells us (as 

usual, varying and supplementing the Gospel narrative 
with discoveries of his own), that when Mary " found 
the body gone," the " idea of its profanation presented 
itself to her, and revolted her ; perhaps a gleam of 
hope ; '* — thus M. Renan cautiously prepares his way — ■ 
" darted across her mind" She hastens (as the Evan- 
ists also say) to tell Peter and John, "When they 
have paid their visit and departed. " Mary remained 
alone, by the side of the tomb. She wept abundantly. 
One thought alone preoccupied her: ' Where have 
they laid the body?' Her woman's heart went no 
farther than a longing once more to embrace the well- 
beloved remains." The exquisite simplicity of the 
Gospel narrative is not improved by M. Renan's senti- 
mental rhetoric; but we may pardon that. He then 
proceeds to the decisive moment, in which the dogma 
of the Resurrection was born. "All at once she hears 
a slight noise behind her. A man stands there.* 
She thinks at first it is the gardener. • Ah !' she 
exclaims, ' if thou hast borne him hence, tell me 

* M. Renan is. of course, obliged to omit as well as to insert. 
Other and previous hallucinations are to be accounted for if the 
narrative is to be taken at all. Mar}- had already seen the vision 
of angels, and had fancied that they spoke to her and she U) 
thern in a most intelligible way ! 



3 3 2 Les Apotres. 

where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away/ 
In reply, all she hears is that she is called by her own 
name. It was the voice " (i.e. it was not the voice, but 
Mary's "idealism" thought it was the voice) "which 
had so often made her heart leap. It was the accent 
of Jesus. ' O my master !' she cries. She would fain 
touch him. A sort of instinctive movement carries 
her to kiss his feet. The light visioii recedes, and 
says to her, i Touch me not.' Little by little the 
shade vanishes. But the miracle of love is accom- 
plished. What Cephas could not do, Mary has done " 

(pp. 10, 1 1) " Peter saw only the empty tomb ; 

Mary loved intensely enough to transcend the bounds 
of nature, and to give life to the phantom of the 
exquisite Master" (p. 12). "In this sort of mar- 
vellous crises" (M. Renan vaguely says) "it is nothing 
to see, when others have seen. The glory of the 
Resurrection, then, appertains to Mary Magdalene. 
After Jesus, it is Mary who has done most for the 
foundation of Christianity " (p. 13). 

Pardon us, M. Renan, she did much more than 
Jesus, if your former statement (p. 10) be correct : 
namely, that with the conception of the Resurrection, 
"le dogme generateur du christianisme etait deja 
fondeV "Queen and Patron of Idealists" (our 
rhapsodist runs on), " Mary knew better than anybody 
to give reality to her dream, and to impose on every one 
the holy vision of her passionate soul. Her sublime 



Lcs Apotres. 333 

woman's affirmation (affirmation de femme), i He is 
risen/ was the basis of the faith of humanity. Avaunt ! 
impotent reason. Dare not to apply a cold analysis 
to this masterpiece of idealism and love. If Wisdom 
refuse to console our poor human race, betrayed by 
fate, let Folly try the adventure. Where is the sage 
who has given the world as much joy as the possessed 
Mary of Magdala ?" 

If she gave it, no " sage," it is certain, has given 
half as much; but M. Renan is at least a proof that if 
no "sage " can give the world such joy, it is at least 
possible to find one who does his utmost to take 
exactly as much away ! 

To make out this story, it is necessary, of course, to 
re-write the history. But even granting that Mary 
might be a maniac, and the sport of maniacal illusions, 
it might still be difficult to explain how she prevailed 
upon the world — which is daily favoured with plenty 
of maniacal revelations, of which it is not very tolerant 
— to receive her recital as fact. 

The answer is, that all the disciples went mad 
together ! 

And so now for the case of the two disciples going 
to Emmaus; — which, however, presents greater diffi- 
culty. For though poor crazy Mary (who, bedizened 
with so much rhetorical milliner}- as M. Renan has 
loaded her with, looks a good deal like Madge Wild- 
fire in her Sunday finery) may mistake a gardener — or 



334 Les Apotres. 

somebody — or anybody, for her " well-beloved " and 
" exquisite Master," and anybody's accent and voice 
for his accent and voice, it may not be so easy to get 
two people, and especially in company, to do the like. 
Nothing more easy, thinks M. Renan ; any of the 
disciples — singly, by twos, by threes, and all together 
— may be thus befooled. 

"The two disciples talked together of the late events, and 
they were full of sadness. On the road a stranger joins them, 
and asks them the cause of their sorrow. . . . He was a 
pious man, well versed in the Scriptures, and ready in citing 
Moses and the prophets. These three good folks got intimate 
with one another. On the approach to Emmaus, as the stranger 
was about to continue his route, the two disciples begged him to 
take his evening meal with them. The day was declining ; the 
remembrances of the two disciples became more poignant ; that 
hour of the evening meal they all recalled i avec plus de charme 
et de melancolie I ' How often had they seen, at that very hour, 
the well-beloved master forget the cares of the day in the 
abandon of gay conversation, and animated by some drops of 
generous wine, speak of the wine he would drink new with them 
in his Father's kingdom. . . . The gesture with which he 
used to break the bread and offer it to them, after the manner of 
the master of the house among the Jews, was profoundly en- 
graven on their memory. Full of a sweet sadness, they forgot 
the stranger" (how he comes to break the bread as master of 
the house, M. Renan does not explain) ; "it is Jesus they see 
holding the bread, then breaking and offering it. These souvenirs 
so preoccupied them that they did not perceive that their com- 
panion, pressed to continue his journey, had left them. . . . 
The conviction of the two disciples was that they had seen Jesus. 
They went back in all haste to Jerusalem" (pp. 20, 21). 

Hereupon a similar "hallucination" takes posses- 
sion of all the assembled disciples. " They were 



Lcs Apotres. 335 

greatly perplexed," says M. Renan, who, on some 
points better informed, or at least otherwise in- 
formed, than were the Evangelists, tells us how they 
were engaged. " Each told his impressions, and the 
reports he had heard. The general belief (con- 
trary to the express declaration of the Gospels), — 
" already ruled that Jesus had risen. . . . The two 
disciples recounted what had happened to them. . . . 
The imagination of all was vividly excited. The 
doors were shut for fear of the Jews. Cities in the 
East are dumb after sunset. The silence then, within, 
was very profound ; all the little noises produced by 
chance were interpreted in the sense of the universal 
expectation. Expectation ordinarily creates its object. 
In an interval of silence, a light breath passed over 
the faces of the assembly. In those decisive moments, 
a current of air, a creaking window, a chance murmur, 
fix the belief of a people for ages. At the same time 
that the breathing was felt, they thought they heard 
sounds. Some said they had distinguished the word 
Scka/om, 'Peace.' It was the ordinary salutation of 
Jesus, and the word by which he signified his presence. 
It is impossible to doubt any longer : Jesus is there ; 
— there, in the midst of them. It is his voice ; each 
recognises it" (pp. 21, 22). 

All this is a pure fancy-piece, of course, and per se a 
tissue of improbabilities. Meantime the Evangelists 
know nothing of the business, though they say more in 



336 Les Apolres. 

half the compass : they know nothing about " little 
noises," or that the disciples fancied they heard some- 
thing; but they make clear, positive averment that 
Jesus appeared in the midst of them and spoke to 
them. " Some pretended," adds M. Renan, (arbi- 
trarily transposing, as is his wont, the incidents of the 
Evangelists, and shifting the time and circumstances,) 
" some pretended that they had seen the mark of the 
nails in his feet and hands." 

Then come, in another chapter, the scenes by the 
lake of Tiberias, with more wonders of simultaneous 
hallucination still. 

" Once the disciples had fished all night and caught 
nothing. All at once their nets are filled. It was 
a miracle. It seemed to them that one had said to 
them from the shore, ' Cast your nets on the right 
side.' Peter and John looked at one another. ' It is 
the Lord,' said John. Peter, who was naked, hastily 
threw his fisher's coat about him, and threw himself 
into the sea to rejoin the invisible adviser" (p. 32). 
I say nothing of the perfectly arbitrary version, here 
as everywhere, given of the narrative. Suffice it to 
say that, apparently, in order to keep the " invisible 
adviser" invisible still, M. Renan represents this in- 
cident as occurring at a quite different time from that 
which John in chap. xxi. has immediately connected 
with it, — i.e. the scene by the fire which is found 
kindled on the shore \ for it is our author's prerogative 



Les A pot res. 337 

to separate incidents which he finds conjoined, as 
well as to join incidents which he finds separated. 
And so M. Renan, with his usual formula (which 
reminds one irresistibly of the nursery-story style), 
begins again : " One day. at the close of their fishing, 
they were surprised to find a fire of coals, fish placed 
thereon, and bread by the side." As usual, a vivid 
souvenir of the repasts of " auld lang syne " came 
over their minds, and as usual with these thrice-crazy 
enthusiasts, a " memory" of the past becomes a fact 
of the present ! " Bread and fish always made an 
essential part of those feasts. Jesus was in the habit 
of offering them. After the repast, the disciples were 
persuaded that Jesus was seated at their side, and had 
presented these viands to them" (p. 32, 33). Here again 
j the narrative of the only document we have is altered 
to an extent which makes it perfectly ludicrous in 
anybody to accept the new version as the true history ; 
and if it were otherwise, the psychological miracle is 
quite as hard to swallow as a physical one. 

But it is all in the same style. " One day Peter 
(perhaps in a dream) thought he heard Jesus three 
times ask him, i Lovest thou me ?' and Peter, all 
possessed with a sentiment tender and sad, imagined 
himself replying each time, ' Lord, thou knowest that 
I love thee ;' and at each time the apparition said, 
' Feed my sheep' " (p. 33). The remaining incident 
in the chapter, respecting the fate of John, is resolved 

z 



338 Les Apotres. 

into another dream, which the stupid Peter mistook 
for reality (p. 34). 

But the crowning feat of simultaneous hallucination 
is enacted on the occasion of the Ascension, " One 
day," says M. Renan, " when, under the guidance of 
their spiritual chiefs, the faithful Galilseans were stand- 
ing on one of those mountains to which Jesus had 
often conducted them, they thought they saw him 
again. The air upon these heights is full of strange 
miroitements :" — a convenient optical property of these 
mountains, but warranted to produce such effects only 
on this one occasion. "The same illusion which once 
before* had seized even the most intimate of the dis- 
ciples, was once more produced. The assembled 
crowd imagined they saw the divine spectre figure 
itself in the ether; all fell upon their faces and 
adored" (p. 35). "The sentiment," mysteriously 
adds M. Renan, " which the clear horizon of these 
mountains inspires, is the amplitude of the world, with 
the desire of conquering it :" and so the disciples 
went forth on their presumed commission to " teach 
all nations." Whether the "mountains," w T hich M. 
Renan knows so much about, "inspired" him also 
with any similar desire of "conquering the world," at 
least all Christendom, it is hard to say ; but if so, it 
was certainly a " miroitement " that deceived him. 

* Here M. Renan confirms his statement by a reference to the 
Transfiguration. 



Les Apotres. 339 

By the day of Pentecost, the tendency of the 
disciples, thus simultaneously to transform almost 
anybody they met into their lost Master, was con- 
siderably abated; but the " hallucinations " merely 
took a new form, determined by their fanatical expec- 
tations of " the descent of the divine Spirit." " These 
feelings and expectations," says M. Renan, with 
astonishing precision and courage, " are daily repro- 
duced (in part by reading the Acts of the Apostles) in 
English or American sects of the Quakers, Jumpers, 
and Irvingians ; among the Mormons ; in the camp- 
meetings and revivals of America. We have seen 
them reappear among ourselves in the sect called 
'Spirites'" (pp. 61-2). But he candidly adds, " An 
immense difference must be made between aberrations 
without significance and without a future, and the 
illusions which accompanied the establishment of a 
new religious code for humanity " {ibid.). 

Everybody must grant that. But what people ask 
is, " How shall we know that ' aberrations ' which it 
seems change the face of the world and establish ' a 
new religious code for humanity,' are identical with 
such as have no ' significance and no future ;' such as 
make the subjects of them the laughing-stock or the 
pity of the world, or get them shut up in Bedlam ? 
And if illusions of insanity ever did thus succeed, how 
is it they did so, except on the supposition that the 
world was as mad as the victims of them ? On the 



34-0 Les Apotres. 

other hand, if madness really originated and published 
" the religious code of humanity," how came it in this 
one case to do more than all the " sages " did ? It is 
enough to make one wish that all the world were 
mad too. 

However, let us hear the maniacal rationale of 
Pentecostal illusions. " Among all the 6 descents of 
the spirit,' — which appear to have been tolerably 
frequent, — there was one which left on the infant 
Church a profound impression" (p. 62). " One day, 
when the brethren were assembled, a storm broke 
out." (There is nothing, as already intimated, like a 
storm, for the naturalists.) "A violent blast blew 
open the windows ; the heaven was on fire. Storms 
in these countries are accompanied by a prodigious 
disengagement of light ; the atmosphere is, as it were, 
furrowed on all sides with sheaves of flame. Whether 
the electric fluid had penetrated into the chamber 
itself, or whether a dazzling flash had suddenly 
illuminated the faces of all, they were convinced that 
the Holy Spirit had entered, and that it had rested on 
the head of each under the form of tongues of 

fire That idea gave rise to a series of singular 

ideas, which held a grand place in the imagi7iations of 
the time " (pp. 62-3). 

I will take another striking example of M. Renan's 
unlimited licence in substituting his own fancies for 
the documents he has destroyed ; in which, as before, 



Lcs Apolrcs. 341 

he attempts to give plausibility to his views, by 
adopting methods which perpetually remind us of the 
strained naturalism of old Paulus and his confreres. 
That example is the conversion of St. Paul.* 

The Acts say that Paul was a willing party to 
Stephen's death, and "made havoc of the Church, 
entering into every house, and taking men and women, 
committed them to prison/' and in so saying, say 
nothing but what Paul in his Epistles says of himself. 
Meantime, it is revealed to M. Renan (shocked at the 
sudden change soon afterwards produced in this 
furious homicide) that "the resignation of Paul's victims 
often astonished him, and he felt, as it were^ remorse : 
he imagined that he heard those pious women who 
' waited for the kingdom of God,' and whom he had 
cast into prison, saying to him during the night, with 
a sweet voice, ' Wherefore do you persecute us ?' The 
blood of Stephen, which had almost spirted upon him, 
sometimes presented itself to his troubled eyes. Many 
of the things he had heard of Jesus went to his heart. 
That superhuman being, who sometimes broke from 
his ethereal life to reveal himself in brief apparitions ^ 
haunted him like a spectre. But Saul repelled such 
thoughts with horror" (pp. 148-9). 

* If the reader will look into Kuinoel's account of Paul's con- 
version — itself a rifacimento of the comments of several of the 
naturalistic school — he will see an anticipation of nearly all 
Mi Renan has said, and sometimes almost in the very words. 



34 2 Les Apotres. 

The history tells us nothing of all this : it tells us 
that "Saul, still breathing out threatenings and 
slaughter, procured letters, commissioning him" to 
harry and worry the inoffensive Christians, "even 
unto strange cities," and amongst others, Damascus. 
It does not tell us by what route he went \ but 
M. Renan is equal to all emergencies, and says "that 
without doubt he crossed the Jordan ait Pont des filles 
de Jacob T This is a trifle; but M. Renan can as 
easily fill up other and far more important hiatus. 
The history says nothing of what was passing in 
St. Paul's mind any more than about the route he 
took; but M. Renan does: "The exaltation of his 
brain was at its height. He was at times troubled 
and confounded. . . . Was he sure, after all, that he 
was not opposing the work of God ? . . . He sank 
under the charm of those he persecuted. The more 
one knew of them, — those good sectaries, — the more 
one loved them. Now, nobody could know them so well 
as their persecutor* At times he thought he saw the 

* This is at least undeniable. No one knows lambs so well 
as the butcher. M. Renan' s naivete reminds us of a story told 
of a New Zealand savage. Some Englishmen had been talking 
of a friend they had long missed. " He was a nice man," said 
one of them. " Yes," said the New Zealander, who had been 
listening, "he was a nice man." "How!" said one of the 
Englishmen, "did you know him ?" "Know him!" said the 
savage ; "I ate him." It was the same sort of intimate know- 
ledge, if we may trust the Acts, or if we may trust St. Paul 
himself, that the future Apostle had of these "good sectaries." 



Lcs Apotres. 343 

sweet face of the Master who inspired his disciples 
with so much patience regarding him with an eye of 
pity and tender reproach. What they had told of the 
apparitions of Jesus, as of an aerial being, and some- 
times visible, struck him exceedingly" (pp. 175-6). 

Then comes a brief and as might be expected (for 
on such topics M. Renan is quite at home), a lively 
description of the scenery. The neighbourhood of 
Damascus he paints as a paradisaical contrast to the 
scenery of Iturea and Gaulonitis, and declares that, 
" If Paul met with terrible visions there^ it is because 
he carried them in his own soul."' 

The history indeed is wholly silent as to the apostle's 
cogitations, and gives only five or six verses to the 
recital even of the miracle itself. But M. Renan is 
far more communicative. His historic muse is an 
effective prompter : like Flibbertigibbet behind the 
dull giant at the gate of Kenilworth, she sticks a pin 
into him, and he starts up, and, with like volubility, 
pours forth a flood of rhetorical declamation : " Each 
step that the apostle took towards Damascus awakened 
in him urgent perplexities. The odious part of a 
butcher, which he was about to play, became insup- 
portable to him. The houses he begins to catch sight 
of are, perhaps, those of some of his victims. That 
thought besieges him; he slackens his pace; he would 
fain not go on. He imagines that he is resisting a 
goad which pricks him" (p. 179). Here M. Renan 



344 Les Apotres. 

refers us for confirmation to Acts xxvi. 8, where, how- 
ever, Paul says that Christ said to him, " It is hard 
for thee to kick against the goad." Other information 
M. Renan has to give respecting Paul's body as well 
as his mind : "The fatigue of the journey, joined to 
this preoccupation of mind, upsets him. He, from 
what appears " (for confirmation M. Renan, with 
admirable sangfroid, refers in his foot-note to Acts xx. 
8), "was suffering from inflamed eyes, perhaps the 
commencement of ophthalmia. In these prolonged 
journeys the last hours are the most dangerous. All 
the debilitating tendencies of the past days accumu- 
late ; the nervous forces relax; a reaction takes place; 
perhaps also the sudden passage from the plain, 
scorched by the sun, to the fresh shade of the garden 
suburbs, brought on a fit in the sickly organisation, 
greatly shaken, of the fanatic traveller" (p. 179). 
Poor Paul ! light or shade, or the passage from the 
one to the other, is equally fatal to him ! " Pernicious 
fevers, accompanied by delirium, are, dans ces parages, 
altogether sudden. In a few minutes one is, as it 
were, blasted. When the fit has passed, the patient 
retains the sensation of profound night, traversed by 
lightnings, in which he sees images depicted (se 
dessiner) upon a black ground " (pp. 179-80). 

M. Renan thinks that, from the recitals we possess, 
it is impossible to say whether any " external event 
led on to the crisis which gained for Christianity its 



Les Apotres. 345 

most zealous apostle :" that is, as usual, he contra- 
dicts the most express statement of his ruined docu- 
ment, and re-writes the history. — But whether^ or not 
there was any such occurrence, is, he says, of little 
consequence. He thinks the remorse, of which the 
history says not a syllable, was the true cause of Paul's 
conversion, not to mention the other natural causes he 
has suggested, — inflamed eyes, incipient ophthalmia, 
brain fever and delirium, the heat of the sun, the cool- 
ness of the shade, and the passage from the one to the 
other. But M. Renaii's revelation, though not dis- 
tinct as to whether there was any external concurrent 
or not, does not leave us wholly in the dark. That 
efficacious thunderstorm which has so often befriended 
the naturalistic interpreters, which did M. Renan 
such service on the Day of Pentecost, and which old 
Paulus particularly invoked on this trying occasion of 
Paul's conversion, M. Renan thinks may have occurred, 
and have had some share in the effect. "It is not im- 
probable that a thunderstorm may have happened all 
of a sudden " (and here he refers with wonted preci- 
sion and self-possession in his foot-note to Acts ix. 
3, 7). " The flanks of Hermon are the point of 
formation for thunderstorms unparalleled in violence. 
The coolest courage cannot traverse these frightful 
torrents of fire without emotion." The effect of such 
things must have been wonderful indeed, for M. 
Renan assures us — though he does not explain how he 



346 Les Apotres. 

comes to know it — that "it is necessary to bear in 
mind that, in the estimate of antiquity, accidents of 
this kind were Divine revelations ; that, with the ideas 
they then had of Providence, nothing was fortuitous ; 
each man had the habit of referring to himself the 
natural phenomena which passed around him " 
(p. x8i). 

Still, M. Renan will not be quite sure of anything 
except the " remorse" Whether \ the delirium of a 
fever or ophthalmia had upset Paul, whether a coup de 
soleil had given him the coup de grace, whether lightning 
had smitten him with blindness, or whether a thunder- 
storm had toppled him over and produced a cerebral 
concussion which obliterated for a time his sense of 
sight and his common sense too, our author leaves un- 
certain. But one thing is clear to him ; " the souvenirs of 
the Apostle in this matter appear to have been suf- 
ficiently confused." Here, again, it is true, the un- 
fortunate document expressly asserts the contrary; 
for St. Paul declares, when he gave an account of his 
conversion to Agrippa, that he spoke " the words of 
truth and soberness." 

But though not quite clear about the thunderstorm, 
M. Renan soon resumes the accustomed precision of 
his revelation. " What did the Apostle see ? He 
saw the figure which haiA pursued him some days past ; 
he saw the phantom which had been the subject of so 
many popular rumours " (p. 182). " The intensity of 



Les Apotres. 347 

his blindness and delirium did not diminish during 
three days; a prey to fever, Paul neither eat nor 
drank. What passed during that crisis in his burning 
brain, doting under strong commotion, may be easily 
divined" (p. 184). And M. Renan begins to divine 
it indeed, in a style which shows once more how he 
can not only write history without documents, but in 
the very teeth of them : " They spoke to Paul of the 
Christians of Damascus, and in particular of a certain 
Ananias, who seemed to be the chief of the com- 
munity. Paul had often heard their miraculous 
powers of healing boasted of; the idea that the 
imposition of their hands might rescue him from the 
state in which he was, seized him. His eyes were 
still very much inflamed. Amongst the illusions 
which chased one another through his brain, he 
fancied he saw Ananias enter and make the gesture 
of salutation common with the Christians. From 
that moment he was persuaded that his cure must 
come from Ananias. Ananias was duly advertised of 
this ; he came, spake doucement to the patient, called 
him ' brother,' laid his hands on him," and the thing 
of course is done. Paul " thought himself cured, and 
the malady being specially a nervous one, he was 
so " (p. 1 8 S ). 

It would be a sufficient reason for rejecting 
M. Renan's account of Paul's conversion, that — as we 
have so often insisted — it is pure fancy, written in 



348 Les Apotres. 

simple defiance, or rather, after utter demolition, of 
the only ancient documents that tell us anything 
about the matter, and substituting his own mere con- 
jectures for the facts which he has discarded. 

But few will hesitate to say that the theory itself is 
— not only beset with enormous improbabilities — but 
full of " psychological miracles :" at utter variance 
with all the traits of Paul's character, as read by the 
light of his undoubted achievements, his still extant 
writings, and the veneration of the world. 

Lord Lyttelton, one of the most diffuse and also 
one of the most concise of English writers (for it took 
him six volumes octavo to write the history of 
Henry II., and about one hundred pages to demon- 
strate the truth of Christianity from the life of the 
Apostle Paul), long ago showed the gross incon- 
sistency of supposing Paul to be either impostor 
or fanatic, and that nothing but the truth of the 
history would account for the absolute and sudden 
revolution of his whole nature, and his thirty years' 
career of immeasurable labours, toils, and sufferings, 
in behalf of the "faith which he had once destroyed." 
On this narrow field alone, and putting out of sight 
all the great masses of argument for the truth of 
Christianity derived from other sources, — moving 
within this little cycle of events, and on this con- 
tracted line of proof, — this author undertook to show 
that the position of Christianity was impregnable. 



Lcs Apotrcs. 549 

And if he has not demonstrated it, at all events the 
book, as Dr. Johnson said in his time, and as we may 
say in ours, has never been refuted : like Butler's 
"Analogy" and Paley's " Horse Paulinas," it still 
awaits the confutation of some adventurous sceptic. 

One half of his argument, namely, that in which he 
proves that Paul could not be an impostor, would now 
be conceded by all Christendom, and would certainly 
be affirmed by M. Renan himself. Probably no one 
would dare to speak of the Apostle in terms in which 
the coarse Deism of the last century often libelled him. 

It is a proof that controversy is not altogether in 
vain ; and that though progress is slow, yet there is 
progress. Nor is there ground for despair that, after 
the sifting investigations of these days, men will feel 
as little disposition to consider the Apostle a fool or 
fanatic, as they now feel to brand him as impostor or 
knave. But it were almost as easy to regard him as a 
knave, as to take the view which M. Renan does of 
him. It is impossible to recognise in the weak, 
doting dreamer depicted by our author, the masculine 
lineaments of the Apostle, whether viewed before or 
after his conversion ; nor is any rationale given of the 
stupendous revolution which certainly took place in 
him. In whatever point of view we look at him, he 
becomes on this theory a monster of incongruities, 
and his whole subsequent character, achievements, and 
influence in the world, incomprehensible. 



35 o Les Apotres. 

i. As to the purely fanciful spontaneous " remorse " 
ascribed to him, we have not only his positive declara- 
tion that he felt none up to the moment of his con- 
version, but that he heartily approved of what he had 
done and was then doing, and thought that he was 
doing "God service" by it. And as he says this, so 
what he says is profoundly true to the philosophy of 
human nature. He was a fiery zealot for the Law, 
and impatient to sweep from the earth, by a sharp and 
consuming persecution, those whom he regarded as 
its impious enemies. Such characters, once familiar 
with persecution (and Paul, as he himself tells us, was 
deep in blood),* do not suddenly change their iron 
purpose, nor listen to the faint whispers of remorse- 
ful compassion. Like Lord Strafford, they are 
" thorough ;" and it would be as reasonable to sup- 
pose a De Montfort, or a Spanish Inquisitor, or a 
Bonner, suddenly arrested by spontaneous remorse, as 
to imagine St. Paul's being so. 

2. His whole previous religious character is at war 
with such a revolution. He was self-righteous in 
grain : to exhibit the perfect ideal of the then Jewish 
sanctity — to be the pink of Pharisaism — was, he tells 
us, the ambition of his life; he was not only "a 
Hebrew of the Hebrews," as he himself says, but a 
" Pharisee of the Pharisees ;" and of these characters 
Christ himself had foretold, what was true to human 
* "I persecuted this way unto the death." 



Lcs Apotres. 351 

nature in that day, and will be so through all time, 
that the openly vicious and profane might be sooner 
touched by the spirit of Christianity than they : " The 
publicans and the harlots enter the kingdom of heaven 
before you" 

3. It is impossible to account by any such theory 
for that instant and complete extinction of the pride 
of soul, the imperious will, the fiery ambition, which, 
by St. Paul's own portraiture of himself, distinguished 
him when a persecutor ; and the exhibition, through- 
out his whole after-life, of the most absolute prostra- 
tion of soul before another, and the most complete 
absorption in the being of another (and that other but 
the moment before regarded as a justly crucified 
malefactor), which the world has ever witnessed. 
M. Renan may perhaps say that Paul still had a 
strong will, still had fiery ambition j and in one sense 
he had : but it was the ambition of being nothing, that 
Christ might be all ; it was the will to be lost, for- 
gotten, in the glory of his Master. Such was his 
unconquerable devotedness, from the very moment of 
his conversion, to the Master whose cause he had so 
bitterly opposed, that for Him he was willing " to 
endure the loss of all things;" in his estimate "all 
things were dross, that he might win Christ." The 
allegiance of soul, the surrender of his whole nature 
to the abhorred malefactor he had the instant before 
deemed Christ to be, was absolute and for ever. 



35 2 Les Apotres. 

Now the intensity of that love with which the 
Jewish zealot glowed towards his Master, is not only 
(as it ought to be) plenary proof of the earnestness 
and honesty of his convictions, but proof also that 
those convictions in such a character as his could be 
produced only by the most overmastering evidence. 
There is something unspeakably sublime and affecting 
in the self-oblivion of the Apostle. Not only can 
none accuse . him of any oblique ends or sordid 
designs, but he is so anxious to exhibit his Master to 
men's admiration, that himself, his interests, his pre- 
judices, nay, his estimation in the very churches he 
planted after his conversion, — in short, everything, gave 
way to this one feeling. All went without a sigh or 
a murmur in the gratification of this intense passion. 
No extremity of toil or suffering intimidated him ; he 
is ready to submit to any ignominy rather than that 
one loved Name should be evil spoken of, or offence 
given to the meanest subject of his Master's kingdom. 
He is willing not only to be defrauded of the honour 
of his labours, and superseded in the affections of his 
converts, but to be absolutely nothing, provided he can 
get men to make neither him nor others the rivals of 
his Master : in single-minded admiration of the only 
Excellence, he wishes them to think " Paul nothing, 
and Apollos and Cephas nothing, but ministers by 
whom they believed." In a word, this single feeling 
was the pulse of his whole life ; as no other man ever 



Lcs Apotres. 353 

did, he lived in self-oblivion, and might say with truth, 
" To me, to live is Christ." No matter what his 
theme, he is sure to come back to Him as the centre 
of every thought and affection. Like the star which 
" opens the day," and " shuts in the night," he is 
never seen more than a few degrees from the luminary 
about which he revolves, and, like that too, is for the 
most part absolutely lost in its beams. 

4. If it be said that St. Paul exhibits in many 
respects the same basis of character after his conver- 
sion as before it, the same impetuosity and energy, — 
this, no doubt, is in part true. But it is not the whole 
truth, nor the half of it. We have not, as M. Renan 
seems to suppose, a change of object merely. Paul 
became in many respects the antipodes of himself; 
his narrow bigotry was exchanged for that all-em- 
bracing charity which he has so wonderfully described, 
and alone, perhaps, fully practised ; " which hopeth all 
things, beiieveth all things, beareth all things, endure th 
ail things." His native pride, again, was exchanged 
for the most perfect humility; and his fiery im- 
patience of opposition (which, as Lord Lyttelton and 
Graves have truly remarked, is an all but insepa- 
rable concomitant of fanaticism, and which flamed 
out every moment when Paul was a fanatic indeed) 
was exchanged for the most wonderful meekness, 
gentleness, and willingness " to be all things to all 
men." 

2 A 



354 Les Apotres. 

Such a thorough and sudden revolution of character 
is hard to be accounted for by a pang of " remorse," 
even if we had any proof that it was felt, and even 
though we add a coup de soleil and a thunderstorm into 
the bargain. 

5. Is it possible for a moment to imagine the 
doting and dreaming victim of hallucinations which 
M. Renan's theory represents Paul to be, the man 
whose masculine sense, strong logic, practical prudence, 
and high administrative talent, appear in the achieve- 
ments of his life, and in the epistles he has left behind 
him ? Is it such a man, as M. Renan's account of 
his conversion makes him, who has received so 
immense a homage from the world ? 

6. If, as Lord Lyttelton observes, St. Paul had seen 
any " visions," or interpreted any external incidents, 
in the sense of divine approbation of his Jewish 
zealotry and his resolute mood of persecution, it 
would be all in harmony with the ordinary laws of 
fanaticism ; but that his nature should, in the very 
act of pursuing with fire and faggot the enemies, as he 
deems them, of God and man, spontaneously generate 
visions which turned him into a flaming zealot of the 
ignominious cause he had oppressed, is a paradox in 
human nature ; it is as though a river, rushing with 
fury through a rocky gorge, was all at once magically 
arrested, and began to flow backwards. " Here," 
says the ordinary Christian, " if you will not allow 



Les Apotres. 355 

miracles in the world of matter, you compel us to 
admit them in the world of mind/' 

If it be said that maniacal delusions will account 
for anything — I answer, Certainly, for anything — 
except good sense, tact, and prudence (of which Paul's 
history and writings show he had plenty), and success 
in persuading the world to listen to them, a success 
which Paul had also in enormous measure. Unless 
there had been something more than his assertions to 
back his visions, he would have been as little believed 
or attended to as other madmen. If it be said that 
doubtless he did not remain mad, but soon recovered 
his reason, though the hallucination of his mad hour 
appeared to him a reality for life : — I answer, in the 
first place, that this was not akin to ordinary madness, 
or rather it was permanent madness quoad hoc. 
Secondly, it would not account any the more for 
people's believing him if he had nothing else to show : 
they would, as in other like cases, have touched their 
heads significantly and talked of the "bee in the 
bonnet." Xor is Paul, as a recent author has well 
said, "willing to accept a compliment to his integrity 
at the expense of his understanding; he will not have 
it said that he is very sincere but very mistaken. He 
says, \ I testify to a fact \ I talk not of opinions. 
I am not mad ; I speak the words of truth and 
soberness.'" * 

* Binnev's Lectures on St. Paul. 



356 Les Apotres. 

There is indeed a key which at once and naturally 
solves all these perplexities and contradictions, a 
thread which leads us securely through all this laby- 
rinth ; and that is the truth of the facts as recorded 
in the only history we have of them. 

If M. Renan sincerely believes that he has accounted 
for the belief in the Resurrection, the phenomena of 
the Pentecost, the conversion of Paul, by maniacal 
illusion, helped by a thunderstorm or two, or some 
such accidents, he must not be surprised if the world 
should suppose him the subject of "hallucinations" 
which, though of different kind, are quite as wonderful. 
People will say, " the apostles wrote what they thought 
history from facts which they thought they had really 
witnessed : this good man writes a history of the same 
transactions with no materials at all. They at least 
assigned causes, which, if real, sufficiently account for 
all the phenomena. M. Renan assigns causes which 
account for nothing — except the ridicule they will 
undoubtedly invite." Any one knowing what the 
temptations to scepticism are, will comprehend the 
disdain with which many a sceptic, really anxious to 
have his doubts solved one way or other, will read 
M. Renan's strange " hallucinations " of historical 
second-sight. They will say, "We do not believe the 
Evangelists because they relate physical miracles ; we 
do not believe M. Renan because he gives us no end 
of psychological miracles." 



Les Apotres. 357 

The great bulk of readers will prefer believing the 
first, until the modern dogma of the impossibility of 
" miracles " is demonstrated, and not assumed. On 
this dogma — the " question of questions" in this 
controversy — that which makes M. Renan and so 
many others construct such strange hypotheses to 
account for the origin of Christianity, our author 
said little in his former volume ; he quietly assumed 
it. In the present volume, he has in like manner 
abstained from any general discussion of it. He 
has so far entered into it, however, as to suggest 
a reply to one of the objections brought against it, 
namely, that it is an unlimited conclusion from 
what must be a limited and partial experience.* 
Now in doing so he shows (as it seems to us) how 
difficult it is for M. Renan and his adversaries to 
discuss this point at all ; for he either does not see, 
or ignores, the very object for which the argument he 
endeavours to rebut is adduced. 

The case stands simply thus. Those who hold 
M. Renan's scientific dogma as to the incredibility 
of miracles, appeal to the uniformity of all their 
experience, and the experience of all whose experience 
they can put to the test, in proof of it " Very well," 
an opponent replies, "if the inference is to be ex- 
tended without limit, it will do for last year, for last 
century, or the last thousand centuries, or for any 
* Introd. pp. 45 — 50. 



358 . Les Apotres. 

multiple of them. If not, your argument breaks 
down. If it is without limit in its application, then 
there never have been events in the universe transcen- 
dental to all present experience ; nothing like absolute 
creation or origination of anything, or transmutation 
of species, or a gradual development of the world out 
of previous states altogether different. In consistency, 
you must be an atheist of the old stamp : you must 
believe that the world has been eternally as it is, — with 
the same succession of antecedents and consequents, 
never transcending the present limits of our experience." 
" No," says the other, "I cannot deny there have been 
such events, but these are not miracles" "Very well," 
says his opponent ; " call them miracles or not, as you 
please ; we won't quarrel about a name ; but at any 
rate they resemble miracles in this one point (which is 
all I adduce them for) : — they show that the retro- 
spective application of your inference from a given 
very transient experience has a limit ; they point to 
a period when all things (among others, by the way, 
your experience itself) began to be; for you admit 
that there have been manifold phenomena to which 
that experience, which you yet make the criterion of 
the possible in the past, cannot apply. Now show us 
how you reconcile the unlimited inference from expe- 
rience with your admission of such facts. For if such 
events have occurred, all present experience notwith- 
standing, the events (not more transcendental) called 



Les Apotres. 359 

miracles may have occurred, for anything the induc- 
tion from experience can assure us ; for it seems that 
there was certainly a period when it altogether breaks 
down with us." 

But here comes in the most singular tour deforce of 
M. Renan's logic : " To seek the supernatural," he 
says, " before the creation of man, in order to dispense 
with establishing historic miracles, — to fly beyond 
history, — is impossible ; it is to take refuge behind 
a cloud, to prove what is obscure by what is more 

obscure We ask for the proof of an historic 

miracle, and they reply there must have been such 
things before history." 

" Pardon me," the champion of miracles would reply, 
" you utterly mistake the whole purport of the argu- 
ment. Its object is, not to establish miracles, but to 
effect a reductio ad dbsurdum of your assumption that 
they cannot be ; to give a proof of the lame and 
halting character of your principle, which you apply 
without limit, and yet will not apply without limit. 
Miracles must, of course, be proved (if proved at all) 
by the appropriate evidence of any other remote fact, 
— as by adequate testimony, for example \ evidence 
such in amount as shall overbalance the admitted 
a priori improbability of these occurrences ; which 
last again will be diminished in proportion as it can 
be shown that sufficient reason, — a nodus vindicedignus, 
— can be assigned for their performance." The sole 



360 Les Apotres. 

object of the argument which M. Renan has so 
strangely misconceived is to show that the argument 
from uniform experience, applied to the past without 
limit, breaks down. 

It may, perhaps, be asked how it is that M. Renan, 
even with the license of conjecture in which he has 
indulged himself, has managed to spin out those 
meagre fragments of the original documents which 
alone his principles of criticism allow him to retain, 
into so large a volume ? It is partly, no doubt, 
because an author will need more ample space, if he is 
to invent and justify a conjectural history than he 
would if he transcribed one from facts ; if he writes in 
defiance of his documents, and with perpetual com- 
mentaries on their falsehood, than if he usually follows 
them. But it is also partly, and, indeed, principally, 
attributable to a cause more honourable to M. Renan. 
A large portion of the volume (and by far the most 
interesting part of it) really has no special bearing on 
the subject at all, and might as well have been intro- 
duced in a history of the Caliphs as of the Apostles. 
Such are the digressions on the early sects ; such, 
again, the graphic descriptions of oriental scenery. 
In the former class of subjects, M. Renan's unques- 
tionable Jewish learning is often seen to advantage ; in 
the latter, his graceful imagination, and susceptibility 
to what is beautiful in nature and art. For example, 



Les Apotres. 361 

the chapter on the founding of the Church of Antioch 
has hardly a sentence bearing on M. Renan's professed 
subject; but it is a very picturesque and interesting 
piece of antiquarian and topographical description. 
In truth, M. Renan's talents in this direction are so 
very striking, that I, for one, heartily wish, both for 
the sake of literature and his own fame, that he had 
given us books of eastern travel, and left the "origines 
du Chris tianisme " alone. 

If I have not had space to do justice to these merits, 
and others of a literary kind, it is not because I am 
insensible to them, or grudge to admit them. None 
can read M. Renan, when he gets on such neutral 
topics, without vivid pleasure. But to take up much 
of the little space allotted to me in descanting on 
these points, while dealing with a book on which such 
issues are at stake, would be to imitate Nero, who 
fiddled while Rome was burning. 

There is another point in which M. Renan's book 
gives unfeigned satisfaction. It is evident that, 
however he may consider science and theology as at 
present incompatible, and however dire the sacrifices 
which he erroneously thinks the former may exact of 
the latter, he by no means sympathises with those 
who think that the progress of science must be the 
destruction of religion ; he holds, on the contrary, 
that not only is the religious instinct of humanity 
indestructible, but that the higher the intellectual and 



362 Les Apotres. 

moral nature of any beings, the higher will be their 
religious development. 

" Rien n'est plus faux que le reve de certaines personnes qui, 
cherchant a concevoir l'humanite parfaite, la concoivent sans 
religion. C'est l'inverse qu'il faut dire. La Chine, qui est une 
humanite inferieure, n'a presque pas de religion. Au contraire, 
supposons une planete habitee par une humanite dont la puis- 
sance intellectuelle, morale, physique, soit double de celle de 
l'humanite terrestre, cette humanite-la, serait au moins deux fois 
plus religieuse que le notre. Je dis c au moins ;' car il est pro- 
bable que l'augmentation des facultes religieuses aurait lieu dans 
une progression plus rapide que l'augmentation de la capacite 
intellectuelle, et ne se ferait pas selon la simple proportion 
directe" (pp. 384—5). 



363 



APPENDIX. 



Note (AY p 230. 

Though there was a singular division of opinion, in relation 
to the expediency of abolishing public executions, among the 
members of the recent Commission appointed to report on 
the condition of the Criminal Law, still even that fact shows 
that the question has made great progress ; nor can the day 
be very far distant when these odious spectacles must cease. 
— Our Colonies are, however, anticipating the mother- 
country. Within a few months after the publication of the 
preceding essay — that is, as soon as it was possible to send 
a communication from the Antipodes — I received from an 
unknown correspondent the following letter, showing how 
they do this thing in Tasmania. 

Hobart Town, Tasmania, 
Sir, 1st June, 1865. 

The position taken by you in your essay on " Public 
Executions" (published in " Good Words," pt. 2, 1865), 
may receive some support from the fact that for some years 
past the last sentence of the law in this colony has been 
carried out in a private official manner, with great advantage 
over the former mode. 

In fact, so great is that advantage, that the colonists now 
wonder how such an execrable practice as " public execu- 
tions" could have continued so long under the sanction of 
British law. 



364 Appendix. 

The following is an extract from our Official Gazette of 
1st March, 1864:— 

" Registry, Supreme Court, Hobart Town, 
1 Jib February, 1864. 

"The following Declaration and Certificate are published 
in pursuance of directions contained in the Act of Council 
19 Victoria, No. 2, intituled, " An Act to regulate the execu- 
tion of criminals." 

John Aston Watkins, Registrar, Supreme Court. 

We the undersigned do hereby declare and testify that we 
have this day been present when the extreme penalty of the 
law was executed on the body of Robert McKavor, lately 
convicted at the Supreme Court at Hobart Town, and 
sentenced to death ; and that the said Robert McKavor was, 
in pursuance of the said sentence, hanged by the neck until 
his body was dead. 

Given under our hands at Hobart Town this 16th day of 
February, 1864. 

T. J. C raich, Under Sheriff. 

Thomas Reidy, Gaoler. 

C. A. Galt, Under Gaoler. 

Thomas Blare, Turnkey. 

Samuel Bryan, Constable. 

William Wallis, ditto. 

Maurice Ellis, Reporter, " Advertiser." 

G. Stuart. 

I, William Benson, of Hobart Town, in Tasmania, Esquire, 
being the Medical Officer of the prison at Hobart Town 
aforesaid, do hereby declare and certify that I have this day 
examined the body of Robert McKavor, lately convicted and 
sentenced to death at the Supreme Court, held at Hobart 
Town aforesaid ; and I further certify that upon such exami- 
nation I found that the body of the said Robert McKavor 
was dead. 



Appendix. 365 

Given under my hand at Hobart Town aforesaid, this 
6th day of February, 1864. 

W. Benson, Medical Officer to Gaol. 

I am, Sir, 
Your very obedient Servant. 

S. W. Westbrook. 



Note (B), p 261. 

The concluding observations in the " Dialogue on Strikes," 
derive tenfold importance from the disclosures recently made 
by the " Commissioners'' sent to Sheffield and Manchester 
to inquire into the operation of " Trades' Unions." Had 
these revelations been given before, it would have made many 
a friend of " Reform " pause before sanctioning so large a 
measure as has just been passed. 

Still, it is now passed, and the object of the nation should 
be to guard against the evils of its abuse, by preparing the 
new voters rightly to use their privileges; and one great 
means must be to " reform " the Trades' Unions, which need it 
quite as much as Parliament ever did. It may be a difficult 
task to remedy the evils in question, but it must be done. 

The instances of oppression arising out of the system of 
" strikes," referred to in the " Dialogue," sink into utter in- 
significance compared to the shameless and frightful atrocities 
now exposed by the Commission; yet they all, even the 
worst, naturally, though gradually, take their rise from the 
principles which strikes incidentally involve. A tyrannical 
majority is anxious to carry its object : if it cannot by fair 
and open means, it will be apt to do so by foul and secret 
means. 

Everything, in such a case, is too often made to give way, 
(as in almost all associations, the basis of which is secresy, 
whether the fanaticism which has led to them be political or 
religious,) to the great idol, — the supposed good of the 



366 Appendix. 

" Society " itself. A new code of morality is invented for it, 
which supersedes the Decalogue, and indeed all laws, divine 
or human. The objects of the association are to be obtained 
at whatever cost. 

It is possible, indeed, to conceive a Strike, not only quite 
free from all violence, but even from the most oblique forms 
of unfair pressure. A simultaneous movement of a whole 
body of labourers may take place, under a universal or 
prevalent conviction — right or wrong — that they are not 
receiving their just wage. But certainly very few strikes 
have been of this character. — Similarly, there are, no doubt, 
legitimate objects of Trades' Unions ; but it would appear, 
from the late revelations, that the legitimate objects of the 
Unions too often form the least momentous part of their busi- 
ness, and that they have been perverted to the vilest and most 
atrocious ends. As they must exist, (and, indeed, may be 
great blessings, if kept to their proper objects,) it is well that 
the attention of Parliament is to be immediately drawn to 
them, with a view to devise such regulations as may make 
them not only innocuous, but beneficial. It is not before the 
time. If an Englishman is to retain a vestige of his boasted 
freedom of any kind, whether of body, soul, or trade, this 
gigantic evil must be encountered with a bold hand To 
speculate on the measures best adapted to cope with it, 
would be premature. But many will think that if Trades' 
Unions are to exist at all, they had better have a legal status, 
and a government inspection of accounts, with instant disso- 
lution, and confiscation of funds, (in addition to the punish- 
ment of the guilty individuals,) should any such items of 
blood-money, or hire of assassins, be detected in them, as in 
some of the Sheffield Unions. They will also probably con- 
tend, that for " rattening," or any like attempt at coercing a 
fellow-workman, summary corporal punishment should be 
inflicted. It is a crime of treachery and violence, like garot- 
ting, and should be similarly punished. Grimes of which 
shamelessness and callousness are the characteristics, or which 



Appendix, 367 

are the result of an artificial code of morality, hardly admit 
of any other punishment, and its ignominy is a proper part of 
it. But the sharp pain is the true deterrent. Nor is there 
any reason why it should not be as effectual in these cases as 
in garotting, and other offences of a similar character. 

Nor would such punishment imply any stigma on the 
respectable bodies among whom such culprits might be 
found, any more than the transportation of a few men con- 
victed of forgery would disgrace the mercantile classes in 
general. It may be fairly presumed that the great body of 
our working-men would recoil with horror from the crimes 
recently proved against a few of their associates : and it is 
really as much to their interest that these few should be 
detected and punished, as it is that the mercantile classes 
should be purged of similar delinquents. 



Note (C), p. 310. 

A friend — an official connected with one of the principal 
Railway Companies — remarked, after reading the essay on 
" Railway Accidents," that it was easy to see that some of 
the suggestions could have come only from one who had 
not practical knowledge of the subject. I replied that it 
might well be so, but that my apology (as stated in the com- 
mencement of the essay), was, that, as "Railway Accidents" 
are still far too numerous, in spite of the wisdom of those 
who are practically acquainted with the subject, it was open 
to any one to make suggestions, even though they turned out 
ultimately of little value : and that though Railway officials 
might know many things the public did not, the public at all 
events was a pretty good judge of what was conducive to 
safety, convenience, and punctuality, and knew but too well 
when the arrangements of those who " are practically ac- 
quainted with the subject " have not secured them. 

I cannot resist the temptation to add, considering the 



368 Appendix. 

present prostrate financial condition of some of our most 
hopeful Railway enterprises, and the havoc the Directors have 
made with the property of their shareholders, that ignorant 
as the public may be of Railway affairs, it is hardly possible 
for them to be more ignorant than the Directors themselves ; 
that the chief difficulty of the supposed " unenlightened " 
shareholders is really to get at the depths of incapacity and 
ignorance on the part of those who are supposed to be 
" practically acquainted with the subject ;" and that many of 
us who are shareholders would be only too glad to be some- 
what less " enlightened " than we have been lately in the state- 
mysteries of Railway-dom. 

As amongst the " dangers of the Rail," this, of being reduced 
to beggary through the flagitious mismanagement of Railway 
Directors, must now be accounted one of the most formidable, 
and scarcely preferable to a " Collision," it may justify the 
addition of a few words to the essay on " Railway Accidents ;" 
— offered, however, like the suggestions in the essay itself, only 
because, in such extremities, any man is at liberty to make 
suggestions on the merest possibility that any of them may 
be useful. 

It is to be feared that no effectual safeguard against the 
periodic recurrence of those same abuses from which the 
shareholding public are so fearfully suffering, can be provided, 
except by devising some method of giving to the shareholders 
themselves effectual control over the Directors. Nominally, 
indeed, the Directors are the creation of the constituency ; 
but in reality they are an oligarchy. In fact, Railway Govern- 
ment is that worst kind of government which disguises the 
essence of despotism under the treacherous semblance of 
popular representation. On some great occasion, indeed, 
that is, when some signal catastrophe has occurred, and the 
shareholders, as lately, find their property half ruined, the 
urgency of the peril may constrain them to some spasmodic 
effort, and they may, in a fit of indignation, eject the whole 
body of Directors summarily ; that is, they may exercise the 



Appendix. 369 

privilege of " shutting the stable door when the steed is 
stolen." But scarcely anything short of such a crisis can 
bring so widely dispersed a body to act together ; and for 
regular and persistent action — which is the thing required, 
and which could alone operate as a sufficient check — it is out 
of the question. The present method is as laughably impracti- 
cable, as if our Government, instead of bringing its measures 
before the House of Commons, referred them to the entire 
electoral body of the empire — each individual being invited to 
vote, or send his proxy ! The utter impossibility of doing 
this w T ould as effectually throw the control of affairs into the 
hands of the Government as if our Government were a 
veritable oligarchy. This, though it may be deemed a ludicrous 
exaggeration of the condition of the unlucky shareholders, is 
in truth none at all ; and in some respects falls short of the 
reality. Many a shareholder has investments in half a dozen 
railways, and is politely invited to attend as many meetings 
in all quarters of the compass, held at great distances from 
one another, sometimes, too, on the same day, and all at no 
very distant dates ! If he votes by proxy, he too often gives a 
decision on matters on which he cannot form an intelligent 
judgment, and even if he goes, finds himself in nearly as great 
darkness. The few who, on such occasions, usually attend, 
can rarely make head against the compact phalanx of the 
Directors, and those whom they have pre-engaged to support 
them, or to negative the proposals, however questionable, 
which the Board recommends. How to secure the interest 
of the shareholders in such a case, and prevent the rash 
measures which have wrought such havoc with so many 
promising railway enterprises, is the problem : a problem 
which the " Railway Shareholders' Association " is occupied 
in working out. 

To some, and to myself among the number, it seems that 
an approximation to the required check would be secured by 
a second chamber, — a small Committee of six or eight share- 
holders, to be elected in every Company, — whose sole function 

2 B 



3 7° Appendix. 

should resemble a very principal function of the House of 
Commons — that of " withholding the supplies," unless, for any- 
proposed extension of capital, their consent, or that of a ma- 
jority, (say of three-fourths,) could be obtained. These might 
be elected triennially, to allow of their becoming well ac- 
quainted with the financial affairs of the Company. Being 
chosen for this specific purpose, they might be expected to 
make themselves intimately acquainted with the questions on 
which their action would depend ; being chosen also expressly 
for the protection of the pecuniary interests of the share- 
holders, they would be continually reminded of their duty to 
their constituents. No member of such committee ought 
to be chosen, who has not a certain large pecuniary stake 
in the company ; this would be an additional guarantee of 
fidelity to his trust. 

If it be asked, " Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ?" it is 
answered, that the very constitution of this body would be, in 
part, a security ; their express investiture with such a single 
function, to be exercised under the watchful and jealous eye 
of the constituents who have appointed them for no other 
end, would make it difficult at all events to hide from them- 
selves their responsibility amidst that crowd of perplexing 
or enticing arguments by which the Directors are often lured 
on to ambitious extensions and rash enterprises. But this is 
not the whole, nor the chief advantage. It is admitted, of 
course, that there is a possibility of this C ommittee being cajoled 
or corrupted, as of the original Board's being so. Even the 
House of Commons was once managed by Sir Robert 
"Walpole in virtue of his favourite maxim that " every man 
had his price." But it would be to forget the lessons of all 
experience, to suppose that this corruption does not become 
increasingly difficult when encountered by the " checks " and 
" counter-checks," which will enter into every system of wise 
government. It is, in fact, the only efficient security against 
human weakness. No doubt, if we could but get a perfect 
man, or a body of perfect men, none but a fool would 



Appendix. 371 

wish to embarrass such an executive by any needless com- 
plexity of function. Everybody in his senses would prefer a 
despotism administered by an archangel to a system which 
was compelled to guard against defective wisdom and still 
more pernicious selfishness by checks and counter-checks. 
But, as such a despotism is not to be had, the only and 
generally effectual resource of human wisdom is to set one 
man or body of men as a watch upon another. Nor is it to be 
forgotten that often in these different bodies— constituted for 
the very purpose of watching each other — an esprit, du corps 
naturally arises, which is proof against all ordinary corrup- 
tion from rival or antagonistic bodies. And for this reason 
we are led to think that such a committee as now supposed, 
would soon guard its peculiar functions with the same jealousy 
as the House of Commons guards its privilege of granting or 
withholding the supplies. 

Some to whom such an expedient seems insufficient or in- 
expedient, think that a government official (it might perhaps 
be wise to combine both these checks, and to have a govern- 
ment official as chairman of such a financial committee) 
should be appointed, without whose approval no new ex- 
tension, and no fresh issue of capital, should take place. At 
any rate, such a government officer would constitute a 
considerable guarantee. Such a man would have a public 
character to maintain ; he would be without immediate interest 
in the issue; and both these circumstances are of great 
weight. Time was, when it was supposed that the vices 
inherent in government officials, the love of " red-tapism " and 
routine, made them the worst possible administrators of any 
scheme, and that it was infinitely better to trust to the energy 
and enterprise of those immediately interested. And this 
would be most true, if this strong interest were always under 
the guidance of prudence, integrity, and honesty. But ex- 
perience has shown, that in many cases, in spite of the vices 
and faults of government agency, it is better to trust to the 
impartiality of such agency , with all its drawbacks of tardi- 



37 2 Appendix. 

ness and over-caution, than to the unchecked selfishness oi 
commercial fraud or cupidity. Thus we find, for example, 
that a government inspector of emigrant ships will often set on 
shore passengers, whom the reckless rapacity of a shipowner 
would consign to all the horrors of famine or shipwreck ! 

An effectual method of providing a uniform and persist- 
ent check to the reckless spirit of railway oligarchies, must be 
discovered somehow ; else when money is plentiful, and the 
spirit of speculation rife, we shall have a periodical repeti- 
tion of those shameless follies or corruptions which have this 
year crippled the income of so many thousands, and which 
will again and again consign the savings by which thrift strives 
to provide for widows and orphans, to the cormorants in the 
shape of hungry projectors, lawyers, and engineers, who 
hang about their patrons, (too often interested patrons,) the 
Railway Boards. Unless such measures be taken, one of the 
most splendid properties in the world will be ruined. A 
smash on the rail is bad, no doubt ; that which occurs in the 
finances- of a company, though it may not make so much 
noise, is no less dreadful, and inflicts far wider and mor^ 
permanent misery. 

The shareholders of Railways are certainly entitled in 
strictest equity to every protection which Government ran 
give, considering the exceptional nature of their property. Th 
conditions and restrictions which its quasi- national charactt 
leads Parliament to impose, are very onerous ; and, as recei 
legal decisions teach us, people have been lured into investin 
capital in it with a very imperfect lien over it, compared witr 
what they would have over any other. 

Unless these disadvantages can be counterbalanced by some 
quid pro quo, in the shape of security, it will be increasingly 
difficult to induce people freely to invest in this species or 
property. 



LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET 
AND CHARING CROSS. 



